Who's Me?

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Fri, 2 Oct 2026 12:22:13 +0530

Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. – Mark Twain

Well, today I am going to reveal a massive secret. Promise me you won't tell anybody before you proceed.

In August, I unlocked level 50 of the game of life, where the graphics are blurry, the sound effects are mostly coming from my joints, and the candles cost more than the cake. I have reached the age where my obituary will no longer need to use the word 'untimely'.

Aging is not unique or a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough. But then, old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.

At my age, my morning routine is simple. I get my daily paper, look at the obituaries page and if I am not there, I carry on as usual. Honestly, I feel like a classic car. I look great from a distance, the paint job is mostly holding up, but the ‘check engine’ light is permanently blinking on the dashboard. They call it the middle age because you're stuck somewhere between “I can do that” and “I shouldn't have done that.”

Now that I am officially a half-century old, I have realized that 50 isn't actually old. In fact, if you can live to be one hundred, I think you have got it made. Because very few people die past that age! But the catch is that you can live to be a hundred, only if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred in the first place.

My timing has been completely off in the game of life. There was no respect for youth when I was young, and now that I am old, there is no respect for the elderly. Looks like, I missed it coming and going.

The strangest thing about turning 50 is that you don't actually feel 50. You feel pretty much like the same person you were at 30, except your body has quietly changed the terms and conditions without asking you to click “Accept.” Looks like I missed the clause stating that sneezing can now pull a muscle and sleeping in the wrong position requires three business days for recovery.

My body has also become more corporate with age. Every joint now has a performance issue, every muscle has a notice period, and none of them are willing to go beyond their job description. An annual health check-up is basically a performance appraisal for the body. Except this time, you don't get to disagree with the rating.

My sleep pattern has also changed. In my twenties, I could sleep anywhere, anytime. At 50, I need the right pillow, the right temperature, the right position, complete darkness and silence. And even after getting everything right, I still wake up at 3 am to wonder why I woke up at 3 am.

Besides, as you get older, three things eventually happen. The first is that your memory starts to fade, and I can't remember the other two. Though I do remember that when I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.

There was a time when I could wake up and immediately jump out of bed. Nowadays, getting out of bed has become a two-stage process. First, I get out of bed. Then I wait for the rest of my body to catch up.

In our twenties, we compared salaries. In our thirties, we compared cars and houses. In our forties, we compared children's grades or careers. After fifty, we compare blood test results with the same enthusiasm we once reserved for salary hikes.

It’s funny how conversations change with age. These days, my friends and I don't ask, "What are your plans for the weekend?" Instead, we ask, "What are you taking for it?".

My phone has become my reading aid on the days I forget my glasses. I open the camera and zoom in on whatever I am trying to read. My eyes have apparently decided that after 50, they will no longer support small fonts. The restaurant menu is now a hostile document. I hold it at arm's length. Then a little further. Then even further. Eventually I just look at the waiter and ask, “What do you recommend?” My fitness tracker recently congratulated me for reaching my daily step goal. I was merely looking for my reading glasses.

Just the other day, my investment advisor urged me to buy a stock that would double its value in three years. I told him, ‘At my age, I don't even buy green bananas’.

The silver lining is that at 50, you stop caring what people think; partially because you've gained a bit of wisdom, but mostly because you literally can't hear what they're whispering anyway.

If you haven't grown up by 50, the good news is that you officially don't have to anymore. As they say, growing old is compulsory, growing up is optional. Though, if you ask me, age is a terribly high price to pay for maturity.

So yes, I have unlocked Level 50. The graphics may be blurrier, the loading time every morning may be longer, and the system occasionally freezes without warning. But I still like the character, I am enjoying the storyline, and I am certainly not ready to hand over the controller just yet. Game on, I say!

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

Silver Jubilee of Loss of Freedom: A Survival Story

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sat, 5 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0530

"Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably, they are both disappointed." – Albert Einstein

Today marks our 25th wedding anniversary. A Silver Jubilee. They say speech is silver, but silence is golden. In my house, speech is hers, and silence is my coping mechanism for survival.

An anniversary is just the day a year ago you were way less annoyed by each other. They say marriages are made in heaven. But, then again, so are thunder, lightning, tornadoes and hail. We have somehow survived a quarter of a century under the same roof without killing each other. That alone deserves a medal, a presidential pardon, or at the very least, a dinner where the prices on the menu have no more than three digits.

Exactly 25 years ago, I married Ambika, my best friend. The great thing about marriage is finding that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. By the way, do you know what I did before I got married? Anything I wanted to.

We met during our CA studies and within a few months she convinced me that almost everything I was doing was wrong. I should have taken the hint. Instead, I proposed. Over the years, I have been wrong in four continents, 12 countries and still counting.

Looking back, it is incredibly obvious that her judgment was severely impaired in her younger years. Love may be blind, but marriage is a real eye-opener. To this day, I have no scientific explanation for how she has tolerated my existence for 9,131 days (yes, every day of survival matters). That is 219,144 hours of her questioning her life choices and me watching a lot of Test cricket.

Marriage is when a man and woman become as one, but the trouble starts when they try to decide which one. I want to publicly thank my wife for letting me believe that I am the one in charge, while she efficiently runs the entire show from behind the scenes like a seasoned puppet master. I don’t go the way life takes me, I go the way my wife takes me, normally to shopping malls or tourist destinations.

Ambika has been my greatest strength for the last 25 years. Through every high, every low, and every major crisis, she has been by my side offering unwavering support. I keep a picture of her in my wallet. Whenever I am faced with troubles, stress, or trauma, I stop, take out my wallet, and look at her photo. Instantly, all my other problems completely disappear. I look at her face and remind myself: “What could possibly be worse than this?” It brings a strange, peaceful perspective to any crisis.

Of course, every successful marriage requires compromise. I compromise by doing the chores she asks me to do, and she compromises by re-doing them properly right after me. She makes the marriage work. I make the jokes. However, she still sneers at my (poor) jokes even after 25 years. It is about time she accepted her fate, lowered her standards, and started laughing at my (dad) jokes. Just last month, I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day, she locked me in the cellar.

I am especially grateful to Ambika for the supreme act of mercy when she pardoned my life after I completely forgot her birthday two consecutive years in a row. I was lucky to avoid the death penalty and get downgraded to life without parole in the guest bedroom. But I am glad that the statute of limitations on that has expired and I can afford to forget it again.

The truth is that I have reached a stage in life where I can’t even sleep without being nagged at constantly during the day. When she is away and there is nobody to criticize my actions, I actually get separation anxiety. Her nagging has become my white noise. Without it, the silence is terrifying. I actually had to download an app that just plays the sound of a woman nagging just so I could fall asleep.

Though Ambika always complains that I forget everything, I can’t remember forgetting anything. On anniversaries the wise husband may forget the past, but he had better never forget the present. I told her that my presence is her ultimate present, but judging by the look on her face, I figured I may need to buy something. So, I bought her a premium vacuum cleaner. I figured after 25 years of cleaning up my act I should finally give her some professional assistance. Ha ha ha.. just kidding. I am not a fool to spend so much money on a gift. I just bought her the mug in the photo.

Do you want to know how I survived 25 years of married life? First, I listen to my heart. Then, I listen to my brain. Then, I do what my wife tells me to do. When people ask me the secret to my marriage, I tell them that marriage is all about give and take. You had better give it to her, or she will take it anyway. After all these years, I have figured out that there are only two things necessary to keep a wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to actually let her have it.

Meanwhile, have you noticed that men constantly twist the wedding ring on their finger? Basically, he is trying to figure out the combination to the cuffs. After 25 years, I finally figured out my combination: “Yes, Dear.” But jokes aside, if I had the chance to do it all over again, I would still choose her, preferably before she has a chance to change her mind.

Marriage is like a phone call in the night: first the ring, and then you wake up. - Evelyn Hendrickson

I have been awake for 25 years. What about you?

P.S. Ambika is the luckiest person in the world. She is the only wife who has had two blogs written on her wedding anniversary. In 2008, I had written the blog I don't forget anniversaries.

Meme is mightier than the sword

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 13:40:49 +0530

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" - Mahatma Gandhi

It was so heartening to witness the Insta-nt generation’s victory of demo-crazy. Having been fascinated by how Mahatma Gandhi fought the British through non-violence, I am delighted to have witnessed an abbreviated, Instagrammable version of it in my lifetime. By a bunch of youngsters who apparently had nothing better to do (because their exam papers were leaked) armed with smartphones, memes, reels, sarcastic placards, satire, dark humour, and pop-culture references.

Gandhi didn’t defeat power by matching its power. Gen Z simply upgraded the philosophy.
Gandhi had the spinning wheel. Gen Z has Canva.
Gandhi had slogans. Gen Z has Instagram.
Gandhi gave speeches. Gen Z made memes.
Gandhi fasted. Gen Z fasted and took selfies about it.
And while Gandhi walked to Dandi, Gen Z gathered at Jantar Mantar. Less distance, less blisters. Very efficient. A social media user summed it up: “Instagram open karte hi Jantar Mantar pahunch jaata hun.”

Thank you, Abhijeet Dipke, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka. And thank you, CJI Surya Kant, who in my opinion, is the co-founder of the Cockroach Janta Party. Nobody launches a movement faster than a judge with a bad metaphor and a live mic. On May 15, the CJI's remark equating unemployed youngsters to cockroaches went viral. While he later clarified that he was misquoted, that was like sending “that's not what I meant” in a WhatsApp group after everyone has already screenshotted your message. (It is a different matter altogether how CJI can call anybody 'cockroaches' during a formal court hearing, but that is for another day.)

Within days, the insult had been reclaimed. The cockroach became a symbol of resilience: impossible to ignore, difficult to kill, and somehow capable of surviving almost anything, including Delhi summer and Delhi air.

On May 16, Dipke posted on X: “What if all cockroaches came together?” Well, they did. And the CJP was born. When CJP was launched, its eligibility criteria sounded like the perfect Indian startup pitch: unemployed, lazy, chronically online, professionally frustrated, skilled at venting, and, most importantly, possessing a smartphone with sufficient battery. No fundable product required (ahem, ahem - my pet peeve with founders). The seed capital was pure spite.

The traditional political party needs an ideology to rally around. CJP needed Wi-Fi. The traditional political party has a youth wing. CJP has all the youth. And the memes. And CJP turned Jantar Mantar into something between a political rally, a stand-up comedy and a content-creation festival, with occasional lathi charges and tear gas attacks.

There were serious demands. There were serious grievances. And then there were the placards that were better than the speeches:
“Make in India, not leak in India”
“Chowkidar ko bolo, malik aaya hai”
“Even my pads doesn’t leak this much”
“Bade bade deshon me chote chote bachon ko nahi marte”

Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Marvel, Melodi, Subway Surfers, movie references, viral Instagram trends, and practically anything that had survived the internet for more than 24 hours, found its way onto protest posters.

And perhaps that is what makes humour such a lethal weapon. Because once power becomes a meme, it becomes difficult to maintain the aura of invincibility. Governments know how to handle anger, slogans, and fiery speeches. But humour? That's awkward. Everyone loves a good joke. Even the people the joke is about.

The rulers can arrest a protester. They can remove a banner. They can block a road. They can switch off the internet. But how do you counter a 17-year-old whose meme gets five million views and your own family has also liked it? Good luck issuing a press release against that.

The sheer volume of memes generated by CJP could probably fill a large public library. Maybe somebody should open ‘The Cockroach Meme Library’. The librarian would be an Instagram algorithm. The membership criteria would be:

Have Instagram
Have a sense of humour
Know to make memes and shorts
And most importantly, have a spine (and that disqualifies ~~most~~ all other generations)

This doesn’t mean Gen Z is unserious. They simply refuse to behave seriously while talking about serious stuff. Laughing at the fire doesn't mean you didn't notice the building.

CJP began as a meme. Then Sonam Wangchuk arrived. The man who has spent years working on education, sustainability, and Ladakh’s development, gave the movement moral authority and a human face. From freezing water into ice stupas in Ladakh to freezing government responses through a hunger strike.

The triple-engine government machinery deployed its usual toolkit: dismiss, discredit, question motives, threaten, bully and, when necessary, used force. Unfortunately, there was one problem. Cockroaches are notoriously difficult to eliminate. If you try to squash one, there are another fifty watching from behind the fridge, and in this case with mobile phones in hand making reels.

There is something deliciously ironic about CJI calling youth cockroaches, since cockroaches can survive extreme conditions, including living for days without a head, going a month without food, holding their breath for forty minutes, or surviving radiation. Basically, nature designed them for Indian politics.

The movement eventually became large enough to force a major political response, culminating in Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation on July 25. Turns out cockroaches don't just survive the apocalypse. Sometimes they cause a minor cabinet reshuffle too. You couldn't write this stuff. Actually, you could. But then nobody would believe you.

There is, however, one slightly depressing part of this entire episode. Only a tiny lot of celebrities and influencers threw their weight behind the movement. Democracy is not a spectator sport. You cannot sit in the living room, watch young people get beaten up, forward three WhatsApp messages about democracy and then congratulate yourself for having participated. It is like liking a gym selfie and calling it exercise. At some point, you have to show up.

A long while ago, I wrote a blog on why people should vote. My argument then was simple: democracy doesn't work if citizens treat elections as an occasional inconvenience. They need to participate. The same principle applies to protest.

Voting says “I want a say in who governs me.” Protesting says “I don't agree with what you are doing.” Neither requires you to hate the country. Neither requires you to belong to a political party. And neither requires you to agree with everything others say. Democracy is not the art of agreeing with everybody. It is the freedom to disagree without being crushed for doing so.

Perhaps this is what democracy looks like today. It looks like thousands of young people standing in Jantar Mantar holding cardboard signs. It looks like a rubber duck facing a water cannon. It looks like a British protester making a Rick Astley joke about Brexit. That doesn't make democracy weaker. It actually makes it stronger.

I am not sure what CJP will become next. Perhaps it will disappear now that its immediate objective has been achieved. Perhaps it will evolve into something larger. Perhaps the cockroaches will go back to Instagram, reels, and their doomscrolling. Perhaps some will enter politics, though that would be the worst possible outcome. Because then we may have to deal with politicians who understand memes. God help us then. Maybe his Instagram notification will alert him.

But after all this, if you still think the youth are irrelevant, unemployed, lazy, chronically online and easily inconvenienced, I have one small suggestion. Don't call them cockroaches. Because they might just come together. And then you have a Cockroach Janta Party to deal with. And apparently, they know how to win issues without being political or contesting an election.

I wonder what will happen when Gen Alpha enters the political scene with AI! Till then, vastaguna huiyee..

Long live demo-crazy. Long live the Insta-nt generation. Long live the cockroaches.

PS : That’s my daughter filming from the background when 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' entered the CJP protest at Freedom Park, Bangalore.

Pati, Patni Aur Woh

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 18:14:00 +0530

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same. - Oscar Wilde

This is a story of a pati (n. husband, in Hindi), a patni (n. wife, in Hindi) and woh (pron. he/she, here in reference to Patni Computers, the company I led the acquisition of) or pati patni aur woh.

As with most of my other posts, this will be better appreciated by married ‘men’, because it oozes of pain, suffering, and the occasional delusion of happiness. Though to be politically correct, let us just say it would be better understood by married people in general (btw who coined this phrase ‘politically correct’? There is nothing ‘correct’ about ‘politics’!).

I have been married (yes, needlessly!) for about eleven years now. Thank you thank you, for your sym-pathies with this pati. We have been successful so far because we are ‘happily incompatible’. I realized early on that in marriage I can either be happy or right, and I chose to be happy.

It would be a gross understatement if I said marriage changed my life. Before marriage, my hobbies were reading books and playing sports. Now they include shopping, eating out, and meeting social commitments I don’t remember agreeing to. But interestingly marriage did help my career, as I started spending more time at work. And those thinking that I did it to stay away from home are reading too much between the lines (though not wrong)!

Then calamity struck twice. A year ago, I acquired another patni. And this time around too I missed getting a trophy wife! I felt like the person who lost everything in Gujarat earthquake and set up a new ecosystem in Velankanni and the got hit by Tsunami. As they say, marriage is like the army – everyone complains, but you would be surprised how many re-enlist. I was getting used to the (so inappropriately called and imaginary) ‘marital bliss’ when marriage hit me again. Hard. Without notice. Though to be fair, disasters never send a calendar invite. But people who have seen me can understand that there is only so much that my fragile body can take.

It is said that bigamy is when a man tries to serve two masters. Earlier, I had to consider the whims and fancies of one, now I have to consider whims and fancies of two. Double the drama and double the damage. I was not even able to provide time and attention to one patni (intentionally, you might say, but I will publically refute) and now imagine the stress on me with two.

One would cry for attention exactly when the other does. Needless to say, both would also ignore me at the same time. Nowadays I spend three days a week with the new patni and the rest with old patni. It also does not help matters that they are in two different cities – new one in Mumbai and old one in Bangalore.

Normally when you’re with one woman, you don’t talk to her about your other women (atleast I don’t). It’s too much information and it doesn’t help your cause. It’s basic survival instinct. Unfortunately, in my case both the patnis know about each other and fight over each other. I feel like Truffaldino in The Servant of Two Masters, except I don’t even get a script or applause. As if it is not enough trouble, the penalty for bigamy is having two mothers-in-law. Despite that, I try to convince each patni that she is the only trouble, sorry pebble, on my beach.

Lately, I have started to envy A Raja and Suresh Kalmadi for the peaceful time they are spending in Tiharjail. What solitude they must be enjoying. No arguments, no “you never listen,” no weekend plans. Just cricket, Olympics, and peace. I am sure they might not have applied for bail despite having just one patni. Maybe I should quickly try to get into a scam and get arrested.

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. Matthew 6:24

PS : This blog was written back in January 2012 but somehow never got published.

Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the funniest of them all?

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 20:01:00 +0530

This is an ode to one of the funniest human beings. A doyen of Carnatic music and a member of the erstwhile royal family (or should I say despite being), he is also one of the simplest men I have ever seen.

Prince Rama Varma or fondly known as Varmaji, a descendent of Maharaja Swathi Thirunal and a disciple of Dr Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna, is a well-known figure among Carnatic music aficionados around the world. There is enough and more written about his musical prowess and achievements. However not everyone has a full appreciation of the sense of humour he possesses.

There is a perception that all Carnatic musicians are elitist and a very serious lot. Varmaji is the first person to admit this in spite of being a Carnatic musician. That is no different from the view I hold of accountants, despite being an accountant myself. The truth is there is no bigger exception to that view about Carnatic musicians than Varmaji.

You may wonder on what basis am I making such a tall claim. Being born with 207 bones (extra one being a large funny bone), I can identify a humour sapien from a distance. I attended couple of his music workshops and got two for the price of one – it was both a music workshop and a standup comedy!

Given his virtuosity in music, I would classify his humour into saptha swara hasya:

Shadjam or ‘sa’ hasyam (sarcasm)

It is funny when Varamaji calls the event organisers as The Boss, Mr Fine Arts, etc and compares them to Mr Universe and Mr World and states that we can do anything in the sessions only with their blessings. However, it is unfortunate that his sarcasm is often lost on people.

Varmaji chided the signers who have a wrong perception that the more complex songs and ragas they sing, the more superior a musician they are. He recollected singing a Nottu Swaram in Madras Music Academy (purported mecca of Carnatic music) and added that if a legend like Muthuswami Dikshitar can compose it, then he can very well sing it.

He also took a dig at the composers saying that the content of all Carnatic music lyrics is normally sad. He feels it will always have them crying to God and complaining that God is not being considerate despite praying for long. This also shows his concern at the lack of variety in the subject of Carnatic music.

Talking about the importance of knowing the language of the song and using correct diction, he gave the amusing example of a famous singer from Kerala who has sung in many languages, which he feels all sounded like in Malayalam.

Rishabham or ‘ri’ hasyam (irony)

In a session, Varmaji asked everyone if they had watched the video he had shared before. When a person replied that she had watched a little bit, he responded saying a little bit is more not watched than watched.

When he asked someone to sing swaras of Valachi raga, a lady started singing without announcing herself. He enquired who is singing to which the lady replied ‘me’. He responded saying we all call ourselves ‘me’ and asked her name. And for the rest of the class, she was called ‘me’.

While teaching a Tillana, he asked out of the blue if the singer could drive a car. Surprised, she answered in the affirmative. To which he replied that if one could drive a car, one could sing a Tillana too because while driving you have to focus on clutch, brake, accelerator, gear, steering, etc and that singing a Tillana is also similar.

At the end of the workshop, the participants presented gratitude messages to him, to which he replied that if he were a millionaire (which he is not because he is a billionaire!), he would have sent flight tickets to all of them for his upcoming concert in Chennai.

Gandharam or ‘ga’ hasyam (caricature)

Varmaji is a great mimic and mimics most famous singers like Balamurali Krishna, MD Ramanathan, etc. He also goes on to explain the method to imitate MD Ramanathan which is by touching the roof of your mouth with the tongue while speaking or singing.

Referring to Mohanam raga, he stated said that the Carnatic musicians’ faces will be so contoured while singing that it will look as if they are experiencing physical pain and that the face will hardly be ‘mohanam’ (pleasant) at all.

While teaching the Kriti ‘Sreesha padmanabha’ in Khamas raga, the first few lines had small ‘ni’. But when big ‘ni’ came, he remarked ‘Big ni was feeling bad since only small ni was coming till now. Now big ni has come and is happy finally’.

Madhyamam or ‘ma’ hasyam (mordant)

The method Varmaji follows to teach is to sing one line at a time and asking the participants to identify the swarams (notes). When asked, one participant guessed the swaram as ‘pa’ to which he blankly replied ‘No, but now you have six more choices.’

While teaching a song which had the word suhasini, the lady was not getting the notes correct. He remarked that atleast you are looking suhasini which is correct, but you should get the notes also correct.

When one singer got the tune correct after a few attempts, he asked her to keep it there and not to change it even in October or November or December. And when one singer didn’t get it right after few attempts, he asked her to listen to the song later, not once or twice, not thrice, not 10, not 20 times, but 200 to 300 times.

Panchamam or ‘pa’ hasyam (puns)

During one session, Varmaji was teaching a song which had the word ‘varadaayaki’. He said that if we don’t sing the swaras of ‘yaki’ correctly it will be yucky and added that it will be yummy only if we sing correctly.

When a singer was singing the word ‘srikrishnaayanu’ with a pause after ‘srikrishna’, he said you will get more punyam if you sing ‘srikrishnaayanu’ (without pause) than ‘srikrishnaa nayanu’ (with pause).

During a song when two ‘ma’ swaras came together in a line, he asked the participant to think of her uncle (‘mama’) to get it right. While teaching a song which had the term Ratnangi in it, he called on a participant with the name Rathna as it is apt for her to sing that line.

Dhaivatham or ‘da’ hasyam (deadpan/dark)

One of the sessions got extended beyond the stipulated time and Varmaji was getting late for his next session. He excused himself saying he doesn’t want to be called Late Rama Varma.

Voicing his displeasure about the crowd in Dadar flower market during Ganesh Chathurthi in the midst of the pandemic, he stated that people will first buy flowers for the puja and then they will have to buy flowers for the funeral.

Apparently, a group of well-wishers in Hyderabad celebrates his birthday every year. However, when they called him in August this year, he politely declined saying he would like to be around to celebrate his birthday next year also.

Nishadam or ‘ni’ hasyam (anecdotal)

Varmaji narrated an instance when his friend from France had come to Kerala for a 10-day music festival he was organizing. After a few days, when he checked on his friend, the Frenchman replied that everything was fine except that he did not like coconut being added in all food items. So Varmaji took him to a nice 5-star hotel that served continental food. All was well till the dessert came, when to their dismay, they found that the Chocolate Mousse too had coconut shreds sprinkled on it. Varmaji drew parallel of coconut in Kerala cuisine to how gamakams are overused by Carnatic musicians, whether it is required or not.

Varmaji was teaching a Thillana where the phrase ‘Dhir’ was written ‘Dr’. Seeing the confusion of the student, he recounted the story of a great scholar from Mysore who had released an album of Tillanas. Each Tillana started with ‘Dhir Dhir’ but the CD cover said ‘Dr Dr’ for all the songs and Varmaji said he used to think of this CD as ‘Doctor Doctor’ songs.

Varmaji had once surprised Manna De with the rare recording of the song ‘Poocho Na Kaise’ sung by SD Batish, which he played in one of the sessions. Varmaji seems to have more musical gems in his archives than treasure in Nilavara B of Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple.

Shudha Hasya Sangeetham or Shudha Sangeetha Hasyam

The above are just some examples and I don’t think I have been able do justice to the spontaneous humour he creates with expressions and tone of his voice. If these are the things one could pick from a few formal short group sessions, imagine being a fly on the wall when he is discussing politics or, even better, human behaviour in an informal setting.

In hindsight all that I said above is redundant. Instead I could have just said the man enjoys watching George Carlin, Bill Bailey, Joan Rivers, and Spike Milligan on YouTube!

It really begs the question if he is a comic who is also a musician or a musician who is also a comic.

Joh Dhiktha Hai, Woh Bhiktha Hai

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:58:00 +0530

You can fool all the people all the time if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough - Joseph Levine

As per Wikipedia (the modern age Encyclopedia), advertising is a form of communication used to influence individuals to purchase products or services or support political candidates or ideas. But this definition is incomplete because it does not state that the influencing is done by misinformation, false claims, and often, lies. This enrages me so much that I think I have reached a state of ‘ADnauseam’ – I get nausea, when I see an ad!

Advertising should be redefined as the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have, for buying things they don't need. In fact, advertisements make people think that they have longed for something all their life that they had never heard of before seeing the ad. Just take a look at the Sky Mall magazine in a flight, where there are products like Hollywood Cookie Diet, Aquabell Sets, Active Sitting Discs, etc.

They say advertising can sell any product and I couldn’t agree more. It is easier done these days as the world today is driven by a lot of hype and less of sense. People are willing to believe anything a scantily-clad sexy woman says on an ad. Appeal to reason in your advertising and it seems you will address only 1.37% of the human race! How else does one explain such products in the market? – Relaxing Magic Showerhead, Nazar Raksha Kawach, etc.

The sad part is that advertising has us working jobs we hate, so that we can buy shit we don't need. Advertising has also changed our thinking. Last week, I saw my wife put on eye shadow, eyeliner and eyelashes. I asked, "What are you doing to your eyes?" She said, "I'm making them look natural."

My biggest grouse against advertising is how it takes gullible common people for a ride. H G Wells said, “Advertising is legalized lying”. What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? - unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public, ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.

Advertisers have taken more money from people than what government and mafia have taken put together. Like I saw an ad last week that said, “Buy one and pay for the other”! When I asked a family friend of ours, a clergyman, about his opinion of the advertising business, he refused, but he did offer to pray for those that make their living at it.

However, I have to admit that advertisers are one of the best users of humour and sex. Though there have been no studies that link humour and sex in ads to its effectiveness, more than a majority of ads use both, and use it well. But funny for funny sake could backfire, like the case of a health club whose billboard read "When the aliens come, they'll eat the fat ones first."

It is often funny to hear the claims advertisers make. Like the claim of introduction of ‘lite’ - the new way to spell 'light', but with twenty per cent fewer letters. I am told that the first strategy of any new marketing campaign is to add the word ‘new and improved’ to the product. Isn’t it obvious that a ‘new and improved’ claim is false? - Because if it is new, it couldn't have been improved and if it is improved, it can't be new! I still remember the days when razors used to have one blade. Slowly it became two and then three. Now I hear there are four-blade razors in the market. But the quality of the shave has still been the same! Hear George Carlin’s take on advertising and advertising claims (statutory warning : contains profanity).

However, advertising has become a necessity to stay in business and I doubt if a business can survive without advertising. Though half the money spent on advertising is wasted, the trouble is, you don't know which half. I was shocked when a friend of mine, who had a good business idea, said he failed because of too much advertising. On further probe, he confided that it was from the competitors.

I will end with a quote from Philip Dusenberry, an advertiser, “I have always believed that writing advertisements is the second most profitable form of writing. The first, of course, is ransom notes...”

* This blog is inspired by and dedicated to my cousin-brother Suraj

When you have ‘nothing’ to do, do it on social media

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sat, 5 Dec 2009 00:22:00 +0530

A hacker attack briefly shut down Twitter yesterday. Millions of twitterers were forced to talk to each other the old fashioned way - through Facebook!

We all agree that social media is a wonderful invention of the 21st century which helps us to stay in touch with friends and acquaintances. If you don’t agree or you don’t have a profile on at least one social networking site, I would strongly recommend that you go back to the 20th century, where you belong. If Shakespeare was still around, he might have remarked 'twitterers never quill, and quillers never tweet!'

I am an avid social networking user. However, I have to confess that it has been a love-hate relationship, though mostly it has been love. Despite its obvious advantages and even if one doesn’t misuse it (i.e. where one doesn’t use it as a ‘chat and cheat’ tool), social networking is not without disadvantages. Few years back, when I met family and friends after a long time their complaint used to be that I didn’t write. Nowadays, the complaint seems to be that I didn’t write, I didn’t call, I didn’t fax, I didn’t email, I didn’t page, I didn’t text, I didn’t blog, I didn’t scrap, I didn’t tweet…….

I like staying in touch with friends. I would like to know about their whereabouts and updates. But do I really need to know that Sanjay is enjoying his ravioli, or that Sarah’s flight has again been delayed, or that Tina is feeling sleepy during her meeting? I don’t think I do. Nor do I like navigating the minefield of postings about picnics and parties, or worse, Farmville, Fortune Cookies and Quizes.

Secondly, there is the uneasy feeling about being at the epicenter of ALL the friends and acquaintances of my ENTIRE life AT ONCE. They may no longer be the people I knew, and I, certainly, am not the person I was even two years back. I worry if I will be able to ‘effectively’ communicate through my updates without offending anybody or making them feel as if I am a stranger.

Imagine my situation where I have all of the following and more on my contacts - three of my old girl friends, my school mate who knows that I once cheated on my test, another school mate who knows the teachers and girls on whom I had crush, a college mate who knows that I was the one who wrote the love letter which was blamed on another college mate, a neighbor who saw me peep at the bedroom of the beautiful girl who lived across my house, a fellow intern who knows that I once cheated on a travel claim, a colleague whom I backstabbed during my previous job, etc. To add to the complexity, it also has my current friends who think I am decent guy, my current colleagues who think I am a good colleague, my current boss who thinks I am an okay employee, my (current?) wife who thinks I am a not-so-okay husband. Above all it has a certain set of people who look upto to me (such people do exist, atleast in my imagination).

And so, how do I communicate to ALL of them at the SAME time? I come up with one-liners and (not-so-)wise-cracks that is so impersonal that they will never know the ‘real’ me! I am getting accustomed to such impudent social behavior. Because I don’t want to land in this kind of situation. If what I write on my blogs and social networks can be used as evidence, my wife would divorce me, my employer would sack me, my neighbour would sue me and my friends would leave me. But thankfully there is no handwriting detection on the net as anybody can write in Arial 10 font!

The other mistake people do is being injudicious about the folks they add to their contacts and add anybody who invites them. They seem to have more school mates on their Facebook than they ever had in school! I just hope they are comfortable sharing their personal moments with these strangers. I am not. I add only people whom I have met or atleast know very well. Despite that, I have 200+ contacts. Can you imagine how many hours it would take to just do the “hello, how are you doing?” bit with everyone!

Thirdly, there’s the whole voyeurism issue. I always believed that if someone followed me, I should be worried. Now because of ‘tagging’ there are thousands of people, albeit friendly, who have access to places I have been and people I know. And worry about it, I cannot, because that is the cost of virtual existence.

The other unique problem that I have is that if I secretly meet somebody (why, because I am a married man, you see), the person immediately puts up an update with a photograph disclosing the meeting. Hence, I have stopped dating women with Facebook profiles! Also if I conduct a party and invite a few friends over, as per my estimation, the chance of it hitting the net the SAME day is 82.34%, for the entire majority who were NOT invited to see.

Above all, the biggest drawback with social networking is that it deprives a person of the much more valuable ‘real life experiences’. More often than not, people who are active on social networking sites, do not have many ‘real’ friends. Soon we will need to set up social networking rehab centers, like where Bill Zucker was taken. But one also have to admit that it is not a new demon in the house – television has had its share in making humans less social and sociable.

However, as I said I have more love than hate for social networking. I have found and interacted with people in a way that I never imagined possible. In the older days, you really had to DO something to be social - helping your friends, baby-sitting the neighbour’s child, giving a poor guy something to eat, and other terrible selfless things. Nowadays, you just have to tweet every few hours via your cellphone and you are done!

And I just love the way it works; instant karma at its very best. Don't you agree?

No excuse for no exercise

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 06:55:00 +0530

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you would rather not - Mark Twain

Virgil once famously remarked that the greatest wealth is health. I think people ignore that advice. They spend their health to gain wealth in the first half of their lives, and then spend their wealth to regain their health in the latter half. In fact, a person's health can be judged by which the person takes two at a time - pills or stairs.

As I approach middle age, I realize what 'middle age' means : it is when your age starts to show around your middle. A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths. I have been employed for the last 12 years, and my only savings have been the added girth around my equator. But I feel better off than a colleague of mine, who has what one would call a soldier's stomach - everything that he eats goes to the ‘front’. He also has flabby thighs, but fortunately his stomach covers them. If he had acted in the place of Russell Crowe in Gladiator, the character would have been named Gluteus Maximus instead of Maximus Decimus Meridius.

For a large part of my life, the only exercise I got was eating and sleeping. I can imagine a lot of readers nodding their head as they read this. No, I am not implying that that is the case with them (though honestly, I am). In fact, if it weren't for the fact that the TV and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all. I guess women are better off, since they get a lot of exercise doing shopping, as they walk up and down giant shopping malls, occasionally resting to make a purchase.

Then computers arrived, and I started getting my exercise by swiveling on the computer chair, typing on the keyboard, and clicking the mouse. Once I got employed, I got plenty of exercise at work by jumping to conclusions, beating around the bush, dodging the issue, going back on my word, swimming against the tide, and pushing my luck.

Despite all this, I have always ‘wanted’ to be healthy and fit. But as they say if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I have this constant fear that if I don't take care of myself, the undertaker will overtake that responsibility for me. In fact, I have become so obsessed with health these days that I sense there is something fundamentally ‘unhealthy’ about it.

I do exercise once in a while, if only to hear heavy breathing again. As I have to force my body to exercise, I do it early in the morning before my brain figures out what I'm doing. At other times, when I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. Like every one else, I have 'joined' several health clubs and spent a lot of money. But I haven't lost a pound. Apparently, you have to show up! I guess if I were born in UK, I would have lost a few pounds (GBP).

Though there are a host of health books, articles, blogs, etc, I never read them heeding to Mark Twain: “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” Also I never bought any home exercise equipments, because everybody I knew used them as clothes hanger. In fact a friend of mine argued that his food is enriched with high iron content because he uses his dumbbells to bash meat.

Walking/jogging/biking could help stay fit. As per research (my blog, my research!) for every mile that you jog, you add one minute to your life. This enables you, at age 85, to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $5,000 per month. Talking of that reminded me of the famous joke – “My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60; now she's 97 years old and we don't know where the hell she is”. How I wish I could say that about my wife one day (Rakesh, this joke is dedicated to you). By the way, I do enjoy long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

Then, there is dieting. It is an alien concept in the part of world where I come from, where people think that they exist on this world to eat. When I heard about the benefits of a healthy diet, I switched to 'fat-free' chips and 'light' beer. The diet experts claim that red meat is bad for you. I don't believe them because I have never seen a sick-looking tiger. If you see blue-green meat, now, that might be bad for you. By the way, have you heard of the cardiologist's diet: If it tastes good, spit it out!

Everybody these days are advising me to buy Wii Fit. Of course, I would need to buy a TV and Wii before that. But isn’t it ironical to think that you could be fit by playing games on TV? However, it is not too funny if you consider that most people do seem it logical to 'drive' to the gym doing their best to avoid walking, or to order a 'diet' coke along with a 'double cheese' burger.

I got to work out. I keep saying it all the time. But it has been about three months since I have worked out. And I just don't seem to have the time. That is funny considering that I do find time to go out on long lunches and dinners. To watch movies. To update my Facebook status message and to write blogs. But the question that I keep asking myself is - Do I exercise to keep fit? Or do I need to be fit to exercise, in which case do I need the exercise?

So my dear readers, here’s wishing that you live as long as you are fit, but no longer. Or, may you rather die before you cease to be fit, than after. Ok, if that sounded awkward, then here’s a tip to keep fit!

History was made on this day

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:04:00 +0530

It’s been one year, 365 days to be precise. Earth has gone around the sun once. It seems like it was only last month that it happened. Maybe earth should slow down!

On June 28, 2008 I wrote Gratitude Note. Even my wife did not read it. Only one person read it - Joseph, the person who influenced me to join the blog world. See, I am not responsible for this space. You should send those hate mails to him. But in all fairness I must add that he did not know what he had bargained for when he asked me to write a blog.

It has been a very interesting (actually it has been silly and an absolute waste of time – but I can’t say in public) journey over the past one year. Has it been a success? Apparently yes, because nobody has stopped me yet. See, success is a relative term!

A handful of people with nothing better to do visited my blogs. A few among them glanced over the posts and even fewer actually read the blogs. Some were so infuriated that they left unpleasant comments. But I converted those nasty comments into an appreciative one. And then, yours truly replied to each of them in all humbleness and modesty. Of course, that also gave me the satisfaction of having had the last say.

The first couple of blogs I wrote were personal stuff. But I quickly learned that my friends and family in ‘real’ life are not interested in reading my blogs. Only strangers read my blogs, who incidentally (and rightfully) are not interested in my personal matters. So I switched to writing opinions and thoughts, mixed with humour, which was soon accepted for two reasons. One, everybody has an opinion about everything, even if they don’t know anything about it. Two, since it is humourous, even if they really don’t like it, they cannot admit it, because then they will appear to lack a sense of humour.

I have gained a few ‘virtual’ acquaintances and couple of ‘virtual’ friends along the way. Can one call them ‘real’ friends and acquaintances? NAH! They are busy writing their own blogs and attracting readers to their blogs. The bare minimum conversation that they have with me is with an ulterior motive to attract me to their blogs. But what they fail to understand is that I too have the same motive.

Now that I have become so famous because of my blog, I am seriously considering contesting elections. Probably I will contest in Thiruvanthapuram in 2014 against Shashi Tharoor. You know, Shashi needs a worthy opponent; he won so comfortably last time.

I am an accountant. I say it with numbers. So here are a few stats (see, I told you that I count my blessings):

Number of blogs written: 23
Average number of blogs per month: 1.92
Number of followers of the blog: 29
Number of readers subscribed for email updates: 8
Number of readers who have left comments: 143
Therefore, number of readers visited the blog: >143
Average number of new readers per month: >11.92
Number of comments: 387
Average number of comments per day: 1.06
Average comments per blog: 16.8
Number of blogs with no comments: None

Top five commented blogs:
I am sorry, are you sorry? (36 comments) - not surprising; everybody felt apologetic
I don’t forget anniversaries (32 comments)
The older I get, the better I used to be (31 comments)
Gifting, my Achilles heel (30 comments)
There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there is credit card (29 comments)

Finally, the five top commentors on my blog:
Joseph (14 comments) - he was obliged to comment since he dragged me into this!
Devika, Gazal, Shri Ramesh Sadasivam (13 comments)
Blogger formerly known as Sansmerci (12 comments)
PRG, Usha (11 comments)
Ganga, Renu, Shail (10 comments)

* Comments exclude duplicate ones, by anonymous readers and mine

** These stats are despite me not being a woman. Oh didn't you know, if you are woman blogger, you attract comments like how a sweet attracts ants.

Readers mentioned above, I would have liked to thank you from the bottom of my heart, but for you my heart has no bottom. I admire your forbearance for having survived the blog and commenting on them, even though most of you never read the posts fully. Please keep your acceptance speeches and interview notes ready, because you don’t want to be taken by surprise when CNN, BBC, NDTV, TOI, Asianet, etc approaches you for your response to the recognition.

Readers not mentioned above, no donut for you! You were informed about the benefits of leaving comments on my blog but you ignored it. Now, the above set of people has stolen the limelight and has left you licking your wounds. You will get your chance next year, in 365 days to be precise. Earth has to go around the sun once again, but it will go by like a month. Maybe earth should slow down!

PS : Gratitude is merely the secret hope of further favours.

Gifting, my Achilles heel

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Thu, 28 May 2009 06:43:00 +0530

The best gift you can give is a hug: one size fits all and no one ever minds if you return it.

I have a huge problem. No, not my ego. Despite my social skills, or rather the lack of it, I get invited to parties at times. That, though, is the not the problem. My problem is that in those few occasions that I get invited, I am expected to take gifts. And that is a big chink in my otherwise strong armour.

Gifting is an art. And like all art, there are artists and then there are wannabes. Unfortunately, I fall in the latter category in the art of gifting. It is a pity, considering that I do give it a lot of thought, and mostly rational.

I don’t like to buy a gift that is useless or is thrown away after couple of days. So before buying a gift for someone, I think about all the things the person needs and does not have. This works like a charm because you will invariably find that the person has all the things he needs (he would have already bought things he needed). And in those rare circumstances when he does not have it, you will find the thing either not affordable or not available. Either way, you can get away without buying a gift and not feeling guilty about it.

On our last wedding anniversary (I guess it was the seventh or eighth, I forget. Some things are better forgotten.), I gifted my wife a diamond ring. She actually wanted one of those sporty four-wheel-drive vehicles, but I could not find a fake one! When she had asked for something that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds, my initial thought was to buy her a weighing scale. I intend to get her something with diamond next year too (remember, they are a woman’s best friends). I plan to buy her a pack of playing cards, which if I remember right has 13 diamonds in it.

Scott Adams (of the Dilbert fame) said that anything that has enough mass to displace water is a ‘gift’. But from real-life experience, I have found that people like gifts that displace A LOT of water. If you don’t like the person who invited you, you could always buy a very large-sized gift, but still cheap and useless. If you don’t like the person and you are sure you will not meet him again, you may even try gifting an empty box with no name in it. But remember that it may backfire, if you are the only person who did it.

Gifts speak a lot about the personality of the person gifting. Gifting a condom on friend’s marriage shows that the person has a whacky sense of humour and is not a conformist. Gifting a live frog to your boss on the office party shows that the person has great courage and is a risk-taker. A plain gift card shows that the person is unimaginative and risk-averse.

People think that one of the safest gifting techniques is to buy something that can be hung on the wall or displayed in a room. But in reality this approach is full of risk because it assumes that the person has enough space in his wall/rooms for all the gifts that he will receive in the party and that the gift would go with the theme of the person’s wall/house. By the way, I was told that everyone is gifted - but I guess some people never open their package!

I hope you have heard about the gift-chain. People preserve all the useless gifts they receive and gift them to others at the first opportunity, and this goes in circles. I think there is only one gift clock in Kerala, and people keep gifting it to each other

Women have an advantage over men in gifting – they get to buy the gift and also enjoy the process of shopping for it (if you recollect, I suffer from Shopophobia Mallfeorosis). On that note, it is said that women are god’s gifts to men – god must really love gag gifts! And if the invitee is a woman, I was told that the best option is to gift flowers. However I learned that if you want to say it with flowers, a single rose says: "I'm cheap!"

Notwithstanding all my troubles of trying to buy (and end up not buying) the ‘perfect’ gift for others, I try to keep things very simple when it comes to receiving gifts. People who do not bring gifts don’t get invited to my next party. And my best friends are those who give me the most expensive gifts. Somehow, I have always felt that a gift watch shines so much better than the one I bought for myself.

And guess what has been the greatest gift I have ever received? - Readers like you!

To vote or not to vote?

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:30:00 +0530

‘One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors – Plato’

Ok point taken, let me vote.

‘The next time they give you all that civic bullshit about voting, keep in mind that Hitler was elected in a full, free democratic election - George Carlin’

Oh, then what is the point, let me not.

The elections are over in India. We will have a new Prime Minister soon. We, as usual, witnessed an election with all the elements of a drama – conspiracies, lies, scandals, smears, crimes, and topped with economic recession. If you are a neutral in the midst of this, like me, you will have a merry time laughing all the way. If laughter is good for health, I guess frequent elections have been good for me.

India is the largest ‘demo-crazy’ in the world, and it can get ‘real-crazy’ (get the pun?). Therefore, one would assume that people would be keen to exercise their franchise. But the (sad) fact is that they were not. I guess that only 40% of the population is registered voters and only 50% of them actually vote – which is only 20% of the total population. And the winner at the most gets around half of those votes (10% of the whole, or about 1 in 10), who then governs all 100% for the next 5 years. Ha, did anybody say ‘democracy is majority rule?’

People who did not vote feel happy that they are not responsible for the mess, in the name of governance, that goes on in the Parliament. I asked a philosopher friend of mine if he voted, to which his response was ‘There is an election going on all the time; the Lord votes for you and Satan votes against you, and you must cast the deciding vote.’ I did not pursue the matter further. But the political melee is fast approaching the point where people don't want to elect anyone stupid enough to want the Prime Minister’s job.

Elections have made me a cynic too. It is ironic that we are attempting to pick the least incompetent person, when we should be picking the most competent one. Choosing the lesser evil is still choosing evil. Of the 20% population who actually vote, I guess 95% would gladly select ‘none of the above’ if the ballot paper had such an option. And another 4% would have voted ‘good lord, not him’. The rest 1% are the relatives and families of the contestants. (See the amount of statistics you are getting reading this blog. Statistics, as you know, can prove anything but the truth)

When I was a boy I was told that ‘anybody’ could become a President or a Prime Minister, and I am beginning to believe it. It is also funny to think that we are choosing from just three or four people for Prime Minister of the country, while we choose from atleast 50 for Miss India. A friend of mine confided that he never voted for the best candidate, instead he voted for the one who will do the least harm.

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. You can lead a man to Parliament these days, but you can't make him think. Harry Truman once remarked that ‘My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.’

99% of the politicians give the other 1% a bad reputation. A good politician is someone who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor, to protect them from each other. Sometimes I feel that politicians really don't believe in the script themselves, but have the incredible skill to make everyone else believe in it. It seems the latest new dance craze is called ‘The Politician’ – its two steps forward, one step backward, and then a sidestep.

I find it very amusing that all the events of the last so many months of election propaganda will come down to a minority of 5-8% of undecided voters making up their mind on the last day. I wonder if there is some way that these voters could be identified early and the whole process be run only for them. Imagine the time, money and effort that could be saved. But then, how will be the media companies pay their salaries? Television channels and newspapers are the biggest beneficiary of elections. Now you realize why they are always keen to bring down a government.

On that note do you know the real beneficiary of the last US elections – Tina Fey. Last heard, Tina Fey has dedicated her latest Emmy awards to Sarah Palin. How can a blog on elections not mention the (in)famous 2000 US elections, in which the person who got the lesser number of votes actually won and when democratic power was taken from the ‘people who voted’ and was given to the ‘people who counted’! There is actually a similarity between US and Indian politics – politicians in both countries go to prison before they enter politics; just that in US they are prisoners of war, while in India they are criminals.

I guess the only thing we learn from a new election is that we learned nothing from the old ones. We continue to vote thinking we can make a difference, when we should actually be buying a lottery. But whatever be the outcome of the election, the fate of the common man is going to be the same. Get taxed more!

No prize for guessing who pays for the government and the elections.

How to make money in the stock market?

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Mon, 9 Mar 2009 03:39:00 +0530

The safest way to double your money is to fold it and put it in your pocket.

Being an accountant, the most frequent request I face is advice on making money in the stock market. I am sure they must be out of their mind to actually know my 'financial situation' and still ask for my advice on 'making money'.

Hence, I have decided to write this post so that people can follow this advice, become millionaires, pay me royalty and thereby make me a billionaire. I assure you that this blog will change your life forever, particularly considering the current market conditions. By the way, do you know why advice is always so cheap? Because supply exceeds demand manifold.

The most successful investment manager was Noah: He 'floated stock', while everything around him went into 'liquidation'. While the most unsuccessful one was King Midas. He sold all his 'gold' and invested in stocks.

One sure way of making money is to forget who you borrowed it from, but I wouldn’t advice that if you are not willing to relocate often. For others, here are my ten commandments on how to make money in stock markets:

1. You need to understand the market. Understand the different instruments in the market, like the stock, which is a magical piece of paper that is worth Rs.250 until the moment you buy it and will be worth Rs.50 after you buy it, or the bond, which is what you had with your spouse until you pawned her jewellery to invest in stocks. Then there are the ‘gilt-edged negotiable blondes’, which I will not discuss here as this is a family blog.

There are two types of market. Bull Market is a random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius. Bear Market is a 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewellery and the husband gets no sex. If you are ignorant of these, then the next time you put your money in the market, you will neither be a bull or a bear, but an ass.

2. Understand the actions of others. Successful investing is nothing but anticipating the anticipations of others. Don’t put yourself in a situation where you justify a short-term investment gone wrong as a long-term investment. They say that the best way to make a million in the current turbulent markets is to start with two!

3. Spend at least as much time researching a stock as you would while choosing a camera or a television. If you hear that everybody is buying a certain stock, ask who is selling. The amazing thing about the stock market is that every time somebody sells, another one buys, and they both think they're smart!

4. Get your timing right. A study of markets reveals that the best time to buy anything is yesterday. There are basically two methods of investing based on timing - momentum investing, the fine art of buying high and selling low, and value investing, the art of buying low and selling lower.

October is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are: July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February. In fact, your best investments are the ones you did not make.

5. Diversify. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, but while putting in different baskets, you still need to take care that you don’t break them. Remember, they are still eggs!

By diversifying, I managed to double my interest income from term deposits. I put half my money in one bank at 5% and the other half in another bank at another 5% and thereby earned 10%!

6. Cut your losses. If investments are keeping you awake at night, sell down to the 'sleeping point'! Don’t put yourself in a situation like my friend who sleeps like a baby every night ever since the markets are bad. He wakes up every hour and cries.

7. Get the help of a stockbroker. A stockbroker is a man who is always ready, willing, and able to lay down your money for his commission. It is quite strange that the person who invests your money is called a ‘broker’. It is only a matter of time when the broker ensures that all your disposable income gets disposed off. The joke ‘it was so cold today that I saw a lawyer with his hands in his own pockets’ is more applicable to a stockbroker. The only thing more dangerous than a stockbroker is an amateur stockbroker. And the only thing more dangerous than an amateur stockbroker is a professional stockbroker!

In fact, a stockbroker friend of mine down at Wall Street confided his unwritten philosophy: A man is a client until proven broke. He used to have a corner on the market. Now he has a market on the corner. I doubt if he took to stockbrokerage when he realized that he doesn't have the charisma to succeed as an undertaker.

It is called a bull and bear market for nothing; your stockbroker will feed you all the bull you can bear. Actually, my stockbroker and I are working on a retirement plan. The only problem is that it is his! I have a doubt whether my broker was a fisherman, because every time he hangs up the phone, he laughs, rubs his hands together and says 'I just caught another fish'.

8. Heed to market forecasts. People who criticize weather forecasts have not followed market forecasts closely. Technical analysis is the art of drawing a crooked line from an unproven assumption to a foregone conclusion. A stock market analyst is like a cross-eyed javelin thrower: He doesn't win many contests for accuracy, but he keeps the crowd's attention.

There are a couple of laws of market analysis that one should be aware of. The first law is that for every market analysis, there exists an equal and opposite analysis. The second law is that they are both wrong!

9. Hire a good financial planner if you can afford one. Financial Planner is a guy who will tell you, “I've reviewed your financial picture, and if we manage your money properly, there should be plenty for both of us.” He will tell you tomorrow exactly why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today. There are two types of financial planners; those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know!

10. I have saved the best tip for the last. This is the most foolproof advice which will definitely make you a millionaire. Buy into a stock as per your investment appetite. If it goes up, sell it. If it doesn't, don’t buy it.

By the way, you can send those royalty dollars either through check or direct deposit.

It’s about that time of the year

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sat, 7 Feb 2009 07:01:00 +0530

He who breaks a resolution is a weakling; He who makes one is a fool. – F M Knowles

What is special about February? February was named after the Latin term februum, which means purification. February is the second month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. It is the shortest month. It is also the month when Valentine’s Day is celebrated. But more importantly, it is about that time of the year when New Year resolutions are broken, if not already forgotten.

There is nothing more synonymous with New Year than New Year resolutions. It sounds funny to me that people actually believe they will be able to change old habits and create new ones overnight. On 31st December night, the person is fat and lazy and goes to bed late and fully drunk. From the time he wakes up on 1st January morning, he expects to lose weight, be more hard working and give up drinking. Can 6 to 7 hours of careless sleep change a person so dramatically for Pete’s sake? Rather, for their own sake?

After hearing people talk about their resolutions, it is obvious to me that they think it is fashionable to make resolutions. The New Year resolutions of people make me chuckle and vindicates my theory that the world is a lot funnier than we think. The real scenario of a New Year resolution is something like this – “Dear Lord, So far this year I've done well. I haven't gossiped, I haven't lost my temper. I haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I'm very thankful for that. But in a few minutes, Lord, I'm going to get out of bed, and from then on I'm probably going to need a lot more help. Amen.”

I think that a New Year's resolution is something that goes in one ‘year’ and out the other. My guess is that people would have forgotten all about them by February. This is the time people end up making a 'new start' to their 'old habits'. As Oscar Wilde said resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

A few years ago, I resolved to be more decisive. But I could not decide on any other resolutions though! But since then, my resolution has been not to make resolutions. So I have made no new resolutions for this year too. My computer’s resolution remains at 1280X800, while by DSLR’s is 12.2 MP. The act of making plans, setting deadlines, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is something that my wife does on a daily basis for me. But things have changed this year. My wife’s New Year resolution this year was to stop telling me what to do all the time. Just that along with her resolution, she made mine too!

I believe one doesn’t need an excuse to start or stop something that one believes in. But there is nothing wrong in making a resolution (any time of the year!) if one intends to stick to it. Like my friend who insisted that she would not make any resolutions this year, since she was still working on all those she made in the previous years. In fact, if you look carefully, there is a solution lurking in re’solution’ itself.

One way is to keep the resolutions realistic, like this – ‘When I thought about the evils of drinking in the New Year, I gave up thinking.’ or ‘I resolve that I am not going to the moon unless space travel becomes really affordable.’ Instead, people end up making resolutions like this – ‘My New Year resolution is to stand up for myself. But if you think that's stupid, let me think of another one.’

It may be a good idea to break resolution into phases as follows – Peter, at a New Year's party, turns to his friend, Pan, and asks for a cigarette. 'I thought you made a New Year resolution to quit smoking,' Pan responds. 'I am in the process of quitting,' replies Peter with a grin, 'Right now, I am in the middle of phase one.' 'Phase one?' wonders Pan. 'Yeah,' laughs Peter, 'I've quit buying.'

Discipline is the other important ingredient to make a resolution work. Few years back, a colleague announced in February that he had resolved to go on a 'sea food' diet and have been successful so far. He had the admiring glances of everybody till he let out his secret, “Whenever I see food, I eat it!”

Another effective way to make resolutions work is to set it up for a month instead of for a year. This also gives you the opportunity to break it twelve times a year. If your integrity is really low or you are of a weak heart, you could go for weekly resolutions. Just to clarify, that is not the reason why I make daily resolutions! A friend of mine told me last month that his New Year resolution was to procrastinate less this year. “But today is already January 11th” I told him. “See, I am getting better already. I made the same resolution last year on January 26th.”

Having condemned New Year resolutions and given you tips on how to keep a resolution, here’s wishing that all your troubles last only as long as your New Year resolutions!

The older I get, the better I used to be!

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:37:00 +0530

“There is nothing permanent except change” – Heraclitus (535 - 475 BC)

Ever since I met my wife (at that time, to-be-wife), she has been constantly trying to change me; of course, with the good intention of making me a better man. But even after 12+ years, as per her, I am still work-in-progress. The sad part is that after being subjected to so much change and having changed so much, she feels, particularly when she is angry or we have had a fight, that I was a lot better man in the past. I wonder if she even thinks if I am the ‘same’ man she loved so many years ago. In fact, I even wonder if she wonders why I wonder so much, which is so wonderful.

Before I got married, I had thousands of faults I didn’t even know about and I used to live merrily. But after marriage, I came to know about all my faults and I live miserably. As per my wife, I need to change only two things to eliminate all my faults - everything I say and everything I do.

My process of change started off with me being asked to be “sensitive” to her needs. I was told that the first step was to be attentive to everything she told me and to be able to recall the details later on, like the following example:

When meeting a lady, whom she had known from last week, in the shopping mall, she would talk as if they grew up all their childhood together and then look up to me and say, “Dear, do you remember about the neighbour’s uncle’s friend’s daughter that I told you about?” And I am expected to answer, “Yes honey, the one who lives in US and has a Dalmatian (apart from the husband, of course).” That reminds me of the joke which goes that at the beginning of married life, every wife treats her husband as god, but later on somehow the first and last alphabets get reversed.

The next step I was made to undergo was to share common interests. This in normal language would mean where one person starts taking interest in the other’s activities and vice versa. But later on I realized that this, in her language, meant that I start finding shopping as an interesting activity and in return stop watching cricket, tennis and other games on TV.

I thought, and so did my friends, that I was a pretty funny guy before marriage. But I was told that all my jokes were silly and sometimes even vulgar. I was asked to be respectable in my speech and more serious in my conversations. This has made me a somber guy, which gets particularly exaggerated in the midst of bachelors.

The other thing I have been made to do is to help in domestic chores. I used to live a life where I considered tasks, like paying the electricity bill, calling the electrician, or dusting the house, to be menial. However, after marriage I was told that they are unavoidable tasks needed to perform in the household and I would better do them unless I wanted to sleep in the living room couch. (psst psst…. I will share a secret with you if you promise not to tell my wife - I try to mess things up often so that I will not have to do them again. And believe me, I have had reasonable success with it.)

When we got married, we decided that my wife will not add my surname to her name. But I had to fight four teeth and three nails to prevent her from adding her second name to my name. That is when I learned that the principle of change only applies to me. She has never attempted to change (psst psst… except her weight). What she doesn’t realise perhaps is the saying that a man will never change, unless he's in diapers.

I have heard that love and marriage are purely matter of chemistry, which explains why my wife treats me like toxic waste. But if change is the only constant, shouldn’t her treatment towards me also change? I am sorry to report that it hasn’t.

So my dear readers, is change permanent or could Heraclitus be wrong?

I hope my wife wouldn’t care much about this post. But between you and me, I have been, in the past, a remarkably poor judge of what my wife cares about. As you leave, please watch this funny commercial on change….

A Valuable post

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sat, 6 Dec 2008 08:53:00 +0530

The only advantage of living in the past is that the rents are much cheaper

Money is a serious matter and often, people are willing to kill each other over it. Money is always there, but the pockets change. Still, that doesn't stop bringing a chuckle or two to me when I mull over my financial condition, which can be best described as fluid, because it is always running down the drain. But after all, we all need some giggles in our lives – on a regular basis – and money, or rather the quest for it, often provides me mine.

Some people think money cannot buy happiness. Is it possible that they did not know where to shop? But my contention is that it is a bad argument for neither can happiness buy you money. My point is that if money cannot buy happiness, it at least can make the misery more enjoyable. My boss keeps reminding me that I should not work for the money and I am always tempted to reply, 'Give me a chance to prove that I don't work for the money by giving me more'.

We would not have had the current paper money system if the barter system was not overthrown (I believe if ebay was around then, we would still be living in a barter system). And we would all have been happy. But devil infringed upon society with the abstract money concept, and so much that banks started pulling out money from thin air through securitisation, leveraging, etc (oh, don't get me going on this!)

As an accountant one of the first things I learned was about the time value of money, i.e. the value of money is going down; every year, every day, every minute. In fact, by the time you finish reading this blog, your personal wealth would have diminished in value. You will realise how fast the value of money is eroding when you see youngsters today getting salaries in their first job what you dreamed of getting by the end of your career.

I always wondered how it was possible for money to lose its value. Then I realized that though you ‘gave your two cents’, but it's only a ‘penny for your thoughts’? See how one penny vanished in the bargain. Guess who takes it – government, in the form of inflation, by printing more currency.

Inflation is like sin; every government denounces it but every government practices it. Inflation is when you pay fifteen dollars for the ten-dollar haircut you used to get for five dollars when you had hair. I explained inflation to my wife as: "When we got married, you measured 32-26-34. Now you're 36-34-40. There is more of you, but you are not worth as much!" I wonder if I could invest in inflation in some way because it seems to be the only thing going up these days.

After making a lifetime of savings my mother-in-law has enough money to last the rest of her lifetime; unless she buys something. If this is the condition, I wonder how much money is considered enough money? My wife and I always, after doing complex calculations on multiple spreadsheets, arrive at it as ‘just a little bit more’. It is winter here and they have moved the clock an hour back. But I don't mind going back to daylight saving time. With inflation, the hour will be the only thing I've saved all year.

It is said that a college education can add many thousands of dollars to a man's lifetime income - which he then spends sending his son to college. Reminds me of the joke - A tour guide was showing a tourist around Washington DC. The guide pointed out the place where George Washington supposedly threw a dollar across the Potomac River. "That's impossible," said the tourist. "No one could throw a coin that far!" "You have to remember," answered the guide. "A dollar went a lot farther in those days."

Making ends meet has been the biggest struggle for mankind. I have always found that by the time I earn enough to do so, somebody keeps moving the ends. In fact, I am living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

I'm tired of hearing about money, money, money, money, money. I just want to travel in my private jet to my island, play golf, drink some exotic wine, wear Armani and relax in the pool in my mansion. Am I asking too much?

The growing electronic menace

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Fri, 7 Nov 2008 07:02:00 +0530

The idea behind power point presentations is to sit through 100 slides with our eyes glazed over, and then to do what all military organizations hope for ... to surrender to an overwhelming mass. – Richard Danzig, Navy Secretary

Corporate productivity was reasonably high till Microsoft invented Powerpoint. Ever since, it has been on a steady decline. It has reached a stage that when an employee wants to go on a vacation he has to make a presentation to his boss, which includes slides for title, need/occassion, reason for attendance, transition/backup, expected return, contact numbers at destination, thank you. What do you call it when you generate a 10 megabyte presentation that strains the bandwidth of the internet and clogs mailboxes in 2 hours, which could be communicated in a 2 minute conversation? Ah yes, technological advancement.

Before there were presentations, there were conversations, which were a little like presentations but people used fewer bullet points, no colours and charts and no one had to dim the lights. Powerpoint presentation is a triumph of process over product. It is more deadly than computer virus and is spreading very fast across the world in darkened rooms with overhead projectors. The genius of it is that it was designed for any idiot to use. You know, I learned it in a few hours! And by the way, these days, you can't ‘speak’ to senior management without having a PowerPoint presentation. Ever since the advent of Powerpoint, more bad plans with good slides have been approved over good plans with no slides.

Powerpoint has become a great tool for camouflaging lack of knowledge. No points for guessing why I love it. My knowledge levels on subjects can be classified as expert, moderate, low and Powerpoint-deep, in decreasing order of knowledge. Powerpoint can give an illusion of coherence and content to any topic which does not have it. And if you can add colour, graphs and graphics, you have a killer in your hands. You can make any point, otherwise irrelevant and illogical, relevant and logical, if made to dance in colour on a Powerpoint presentation.

Walking into a meeting without a PowerPoint presentation is like walking in without clothes. Earlier people used to kill meetings; these days Powerpoints do it more successfully. It has become the most effective sleeping pill, particularly when administered on a group of people. Powerpoint presentations too often resemble a school play - very loud, very slow, and very simple. It is only a matter of time before it will be used for anesthesia in hospitals and for torture in prisons.

But despite the complaints about Powerpoints, people don’t hesitate to inflict this upon others. Anybody who gets a powerpoint with good graphics immediately forwards it to all contacts in his address book, even before going through it fully. A classic case of ‘do unto others what you don’t want them to do to you’.

It is said that a good presentation should be like a woman's skirt: short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the essentials. However, I believe that the way to make a great presentation is to have a good beginning and a good ending, and then having the two as close together as possible. I feel that if one cannot explain things in two to three slides, then it is highly likely that it is bullshit. I don’t think I need to analyse and present 100 possible courses of action, when I am only going to recommend one or two.

The last presentation I made was to update the management about the last update I gave them on the meeting we had, to discuss what to cover in the upcoming organizational event, where we would discuss the future priorities. I hope you understand how easy it was for me to make the presentation when the topic was so simple!

The most amusing presentation I ever made was in one of my previous organizations where the appraisal was supposed to be accompanied by a presentation. Imagine the possibilities (of lies!) and the length of the presentations. When my boss asked me to add firepower to my presentation, I added photos of guns and bombs in the presentation and even attached a photo of a nuclear explosion. I am sure I don’t have to tell you that I was promoted that year.

Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems once famously quoted, "We had 12.9 gigabytes of (Microsoft) PowerPoint slides on our network. And I thought, 'What a huge waste of corporate productivity.' So we banned it. And we've had three unbelievable record-breaking fiscal quarters since we banned PowerPoint. Now, I would argue that every company in the world, if they would just ban PowerPoint, would see their earnings skyrocket. Employees would stand around going, 'What do I do? Guess I've got to go to work.'"

If power corrupts, then Powerpoint corrupts absolutely!

As banks go ‘bank’rupt, here’s something you can bank on!

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:47:00 +0530

(I have received many enquiries about a blog on the collapse of banks since I work closely with the investment banking community. But I felt that enough has been written on the topic that I chose to write on banks in general)

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain - Mark Twain

The impression of a banker, for me, was that of a risk-averse, pin-stripe suited guy. Well, if I were to consider the way banks are falling like nine pins on Wall Street (they are planning to rename it as Fall Street!), it is time I created exactly the opposite impression. I feel the phrase bankrupt has become ironic; shouldn’t bank mean ‘bank'rupt now? By the way, the safest bank these days seems to be the Piggy Bank. But I am not that worried about all these banks closing down. If the banks are closed, I just use the ATM.

Banks are intermediaries who take one person’s money (in the form of deposits) and lend to another (in the form of loans). Banks charge you high interest to borrow your neighbour’s money which you could have borrowed directly at much lesser interest rates, if you had not thrown stones at his dog or shouted at his children when they stole fruits from your garden. As per traditional theory there are three rules to become a successful banker - First, don't lend money to those who don't have any; second, don't lend money to those who need it; and third, don't lend your own money.

Lending is the main activity of banks, because that is how they make money. You have to prove to the bank to ‘its satisfaction’ that you would be able to repay the loan. Practically what it means is that you will have to prove that you actually don’t need the money. I never knew why banks called the loan I took a ‘personal loan’ till I missed couple of my payments. And boy, did they get personal! But you may want to be careful with those calendars banks give you to help you keep track of your payments; some have more than 12 months on them! A word of caution for borrowers - you may be turned down a loan if you are good friends with many collection agencies.

When I learned that I could borrow against assets, I approached my bank to lend me money to buy a car against my intellectual property and knowledge assets. And that is when I learned their true worth! Of course, my job also reminds me of it often. After influencing higher ups of my bank, they finally offered a loan of $10,000 to buy a car that was worth $20,000, after ensuring that I have income to repay a $100,000 loan, against the guarantee of two people who have assets worth $250,000 each. That is when I realized that there is more truth than humour in the joke “if I owed the bank $10,000, it is my problem; but if I owed the bank $1 million, then it is the bank's problem”.

Banks, like trees, have branches but no leaves grow on them. Before the internet revolution, a bank’s worth was directly proportional to the number of branches; but today it is proportional to the number of online frauds. As a kid whenever I asked for an expensive toy I was always told that money doesn’t grow on trees. But if money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?

A bank teller is the person who tells (tales) why he can’t do things that you expect him to do. But I found that most of the time tellers don’t tell much. Last time I tried to encash my cheque, the teller told me that I had forgotten to dot the "i" in Salil. I asked him, "Can't you do that for me?" The teller replied, "Sorry sir. It must be in the same handwriting." Another time the teller asked me to identify myself. I immediately looked into the mirror and confirmed that it was me who was at the bank. And the teller was satisfied! Also if bankers could count, why do they always have ten windows and two tellers?

Swiss banks, known for their privacy and safety, are where people hoard their ‘black’ money (see, I told you there is racism among the rich!). Woody Allen once remarked “If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank”. I wonder where the bankers store all the money, with the way it is multiplying exponentially across the world. That makes me want to start a Swiss bank. My readers are all welcome to invest their hard(ly)-earned money in it.

Luther George Simjian once asked for money from his friend through a window. This gave him the idea of creating a hole-in-the-wall machine that would allow customers to make financial transactions, which eventually led to the invention of ATM machine. But whenever I have tried to check my account balance at the ATM, instead of printing out the receipt, the machine laughs out loud, gives a message ‘Not worth wasting paper’ and ejects the card.

Call centers are inventions of banks to check if you really have a problem. If you can call 13 times and wait for 45 minutes each, listening to the bank’s vision and mission statements, before you get through to a human, who of course is not in a position to help you, then it could be that you have a problem. Else, you are person with a complaining nature. I am not saying that the customer service in my bank is bad, but when I went in the other day and asked the clerk to check my balance ... she leaned over and pushed me.

Science has been working for long to develop neutron bomb that destroys people and leaves buildings intact. However, banks beat them to it by inventing mortgages. There were 5-year rest loans, interest-only loans, 30-year loans, you name it. The way things were going, I was looking for the day when banks would start giving 100 year loans to buy a house.

Meanwhile my online bank seems to have gone offline… with my account!

Keep your head down and spread your legs a bit more..

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sat, 4 Oct 2008 08:46:00 +0530

Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at. And no matter how bad you are, it is always possible to get worse.

Mark Twain is one of my most-respected writers and most of the respect he gets from me is because of his famous quote ‘Golf is a good walk spoiled’. With due respect, he has a lot of other reasons to be respected. But ever since I heard that, I respect my walks a lot more, which incidentally have never been on a Golf course. See how much of respect I have used in this paragraph. I told you, I am a respectable fellow.

Golf is a game where you put a very small ball into an even smaller hole. Research shows that the average age of a golf player is 51 years (my research; but remember, my blog). I guess that explains why golf is such a thrilling game keeping you at the edge of your seat always. Any more excitement and the percentage of elders in the population will drastically reduce.

What is it with senior management and Golf? Golf is 20 percent talent and 80 percent management. Again my research suggests that the favourite game of 94% of senior management is Golf. There are so many better games and you are pardoned if you thought that the law of averages should suggest that those games might also be popular among the senior management. But alas, that is not the case. By the way, do you know the ideal score for a senior management golfer? It is 90. If he is better than that, he is neglecting his company. And if he is worse, he is neglecting his Golf.

Talking about golf and senior management reminds me of this joke:
The game of choice for junior employees is basketball.
The game of choice for frontline employees is football.
The game of choice for middle management is tennis.
The game of choice for CEOs and executives is golf.
Conclusion: Higher up the corporate ladder you are, smaller your balls are.

But I am still not sure if one takes up Golf after becoming senior management or if one takes up Golf to become senior management. If the sample of one of my senior colleague, who recently moved up to senior management, is only considered, it would suggest the former.

A senior colleague of mine explained his liking for Golf as thus, “You are not only playing with other players, but with yourself too. There are natural complexities also that you encounter which makes the game very interesting.” I found that explanation puzzling since it was no different in other sports too. My confusion was resolved when I learned later that Golf is the only sport he plays.

I asked a friend of mine, who is learning the game, how his game was shaping up. His reply was, “It has improved a lot. I am hitting fewer trees now.” A senior executive of our company has all the gadgets to play golf better; he now just needs to learn to play the game. Golf sure is a mysterious game that raises so many conundrums. He makes me wonder ‘do you buy the gadgets to improve the game or do you improve your game and then make use of the gadgets?’

Another colleague in senior management died for the cause, sorry, died on the course. But we weren’t surprised; he was so fanatic about the game. He got a hole in one before he even learned the game. There is another fanatic follower of the game in our senior management, who beats everybody so miserably that if he collected a dollar for every win, he would have been richer than Bill Gates by now.

I have not taken to the game due to its obvious lack of excitement over an eighteen-hole marathon walk of close to four hours. The other problem is that it takes you so far away from the clubhouse unlike other games. H G Wells once remarked that the uglier a man's legs are, the better he plays golf. By that logic, I should actually be a great golf player. Cricket builds character, soccer reveals it and golf exposes it; and that is another reason I keep away from up the game. My only handicap in Golf is the grass, woods and irons - I don’t know about them!

How can any write-up on golf not mention Tiger Woods? If fifty years ago, 100 white men chasing one black man across a field was called the Ku Klux Klan. Today it's called the PGA Tour.

If golf is all about putting things into holes, caroms, anyone?

There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else there is credit card

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 03:45:00 +0530

A man’s credit card was stolen, but he decided not to report it because the thief was spending less than his wife did. The last I heard of this guy, he was divorced.

When Alexander Parkes invented plastic, I am sure he did not imagine it would be used to make money. If he knew, he would not have died a poor man (Actually I don’t know if he died a poor man, but it is not a lie to use a fact without knowing if it is true or false). While we are on plastic, if I cut up my credit cards, did I do a plastic surgery?

The advantage of a credit card is that you don’t have to carry large amount of cash in bags and sacks (the way people shop these days) while shopping and eating out. However, people are not aware that they are spending money they have not earned. Heard of debit cards, anyone?

Smart (read ‘evil’) credit card companies somehow seem to know how to tempt people to increase their credit card use. First, they came up with points for your spending. Only 1% (my own estimate using a highly scientific statistical model called ‘inky pinky ponky’) of card holders actually redeem those points. Then came pre-approved credit cards. I feel people consider being pre-approved for a credit card mean they have to apply for it! Then they came up with add-on cards. It became prestigious to give add-on cards to your spouse and children. I have even given one each to my servant and driver.

I have mastered the trick to evade sales people who jump at you while leaving big stores like Big Bazaar or Food World and are willing to give you a credit card with an ID proof and invoice as the income proof. Now you know why I would never work for a credit card company. It also amuses me that they would not give me a credit card if I came to buy only bread in the morning (because then the bill will be only for Rs 15) even though my salary is Rs 25 lakhs. (I did not want to reveal my real salary; so I have mentioned only half of it!). Please don’t assume that I went to buy bread in the morning because I fought with my wife and she refused to cook breakfast for me.

An interesting thing I noticed about credit card holders is the number of cards they carry. If it is for convenience, then you need only one credit card. If it is for acceptance at multiple outlets, then you need two or three of Visa, Master, Amex, etc. If it is for drawing as much credit as possible, then you need more than two and the willingness to relocate often. And if it is to impress women and to lure them to go on date with you, then you definitely need a dozen.

The sad part, however, is that most of us are walking around with more plastic debt than we can repay in paper. Expecting the credit card companies to be fair is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian. The mantra these days seems to be that the way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it!

Millions of credit cards have enabled millions of people to get mired in millions of debt and have led to millions of bankruptcies. Without credit cards, people wouldn't owe millions of dollars to millions of credit card companies, on which they're being charged millions of interest. (If you wondered why I have used so many millions, I don’t know any number larger than that).

One big problem with credit cards is the enormous possibility of misuse. The statistics on credit card frauds are that one out of every five credit card is misused. Speak to four of your friends. If they don’t seem to have a problem, then it's you who is misusing a credit card! It is interesting that credit card companies always process the payments no matter how you signed the receipts.

An anecdote I read: “I was signing the receipt for my credit card purchase when the clerk noticed I had never signed my name on the back of the credit card. She informed me that she could not complete the transaction unless the card was signed. When I asked why, she explained that it was necessary to compare the signature I had just signed on the receipt with the one on the card. So I signed the credit card in front of her. She carefully compared the signature to the one I had just signed on the receipt. As luck would have it, they matched.”

The most affected people due to the credit card usage obviously must be the street side beggars, what with people no longer going around with change. The next would be the adult and instant entertainment sites, who would be saddled with a very high rate of charge reversals from visitors who claim to their wives when the statement comes that they never signed up for the service and that it must have been some prank or mistake.

While Larry King was interviewing Satan on his TV show, King asked Satan to describe the foulest deed he had ever done. Satan refused to name one, pointing out that there had been so much destruction over the years, so many lives cut short, and so many wars and calamities that none stood out. But King kept pestering. “Surely, if you think hard enough, there must be one dastardly deed you are most proud of.” Satan thought for a moment, his eyes brightened, and he replied, “Well, yes. I guess if I have to pick just one particularly evil thing I'm proudest of, it would be this: Several years ago, I invented credit cards.”

If you aren't saddled with credit card debt, congratulations, you are only a few steps away from sainthood!

Making a friend read my blog ….. $ 10
Buying a reader software that will read out the blog ….. $ 100

Having readers like you who keep coming back for more ….. Priceless!

I am sorry, are you sorry?

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 06:34:00 +0530

The only correct actions are those that demand no explanation and no apology – Red Auerbach

The word sorry is so abused these days that people no longer mean it when they say, like ‘sorry we are closed’ or ‘sorry I kept you waiting’. I was introduced to meaningless apologies by Doordarshan when they frequently interrupted the telecast (it was the only channel those days and one couldn’t even change channels) and used to apologise with a screen that said ‘sorry for the interruption’. In fact, it has reached a stage where if you really mean it you have to specifically say so, like ‘I am sorry and I really mean it’ or ‘I am really sorry’. By the way, I am really sorry I don’t know who Red Auerbach, whom I have quoted above, is.

People are willing to offer apologies for practically anything these days. Apologies don’t cost money and neither is there a tax on it. And it comes with the added advantage of making the other person happy. So the cunning ones (read salesmen, lawyers, bankers, etc; no, not accountants, they are a nice lot) are handing them out like fliers. Like the woman apologizing to her man that she was sorry she beat him up! However, there is still is a small set of uptight folks who are not all that forthcoming with it. They think that it is beneath their self-respect to apologise, however wrong they might be!

My policy on this is very simple. I, like everyone else, at times (ok, ok, most of the times), do things that bother or hurt others, like forgetting something or making an irritable remark. If my actions have caused any harm, offence, discomfort or inconvenience to a person, I apologise straightaway. Like when I met my wife, I told her that I am sorry I came into her life. I am sorry to my parents that I was born to them. I feel sorry to myself for my present condition. Coming to think of it, I apologise to you for this blog.

The timing of an apology is very important. If you delay, the issue could get complicated and the injured party might be less open to forgiving you. But you would always be able to better Vatican’s timing, which apologises a few hundred years after the deed when the injured parties are no longer around, like when it apologized to Galileo in 1992 after 359 years. Another thing to note is that if you don’t ask forgiveness now, it is quite possible that tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty!

There is a set of smart people who are good at giving false apology, which sounds like a real apology without taking any blame for the action. For example, my girlfriend tells me often, ‘I am sorry that you feel that way.’ She is only sorry for my feeling about her action and not her action per se. Similarly when my wife gets angry, she always apologizes saying she is sorry that I made her angry. Another example is the thief who was sorry that he is to be hanged; not that he is a thief.

Then there is the set of folks who get angry if the apology is not accepted. Like this guy who was caught two-timing and was shouting at his girlfriend, “I told you I am sorry. NOW what is your problem?” Another tactic is to resort to the intent excuse. I used it with my neighbor when I shot his annoying dog, “I am sorry, but I didn’t intend to shoot your dog. The gun somehow used its artificial intelligence and fired at the dog.” Don’t ask me what intent has got to do with the harm caused, but it seems to work somehow.

In the corporate world in particular the art that is followed is called ‘it is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.’ Another trick followed is to apologise after stabbing your colleague from behind. That is when I admire my true friends; they don’t stab you from behind, they do it in the front.

A really good method of apologizing is to seek forgiveness by appealing to the other person’s good self. Probably getting a little emotional also helps. Like when I screwed up my wife’s plants I told her, “I am really sorry, but I know with your kind-hearted personality you will forgive me. You know how much I love you and care for you, honey.”

When you are apologizing to a woman, the best bet, of course, is flowers. You get two benefits with a bouquet attached with ‘I am sorry’ note – you get forgiveness for certain, while being actually sorry to the flowers!

I have had a very successful marriage so far and one of the prime reasons for the success has been our willingness to apologise to each other. Whenever I am wrong, I apologise to my wife; and whenever she is wrong, I apologise to her (like a true happily married man). In fact, I have found that an apology is a good way to have the last word!

But the best way to correct wrong actions is to try lying, blaming others, making excuses or justifying our actions. If nothing works, use one of the techniques of apologizing mentioned above and you might get away. Or, you could try singing this.

You da man, Maveli

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:24:00 +0530

[Legend has it that Maveli, aka Mahabali, ruled the state of Kerala in India, and was renowned for the justice and goodness of his rule. As Maveli was an asura (demon), devas (divine) felt threatened and plotted to end his reign; much like in the corporate world where established power centers plots against upcoming ones. Vishnu, the protector among Hindu gods, disguised as a poor Brahmin called Vamana, approached Maveli and asked for three steps of land. Just as the generous Maveli agreed, Vamana increased in size to cosmic proportions. With his first step, Vamana covered earth and with the second, he covered skies. Maveli, with nothing left, offered his head for the last step and Vamana pushed him down to Patala, the nether world. Vishnu, pleased with Maveli, granted his wish to be allowed to visit Kerala once a year to see if his people were happy and content. Onam, the biggest festival of Kerala, marks the annual visit of Maveli]

Our story happens in the United States of America. Maveli has lost hope on Kerala owing to his bad experiences with mosquitoes, strikes, transport bus, ration shops, monsoon, pollution and thattu kadaas (road-side eateries) in god’s own country. Armed with a special invitation from Bush (not WMD), Maveli decided to visit US this Onam to see the welfare of Keralites in US.

Maveli took the Air India (being ex-government, he insists on using government services) non-stop flight from Mumbai to New York. He wondered why the lemonade served on the flight tasted so horrible, not knowing that it was beer. Maveli asked the stewardess for a massage and could not understand why she refused, as devadasis (he was an asura king, remember?) in his Patal Force One flight used to give him a nice Ayurvedic massage.

Finding a mallu family in the back row, Maveli tried to engage into a conversation. To the question if he knew Onam, the teenager in the family replied, “There was this dude called Maveli, like he was really cool king and stuff, but some guy squashed him unda’ the ground. He comes visiting them Keralites every yea’, you know, and they celebrate Onam.”

At the New York airport, Maveli asked the blonde behind the information desk, “Can you tell me the time difference between India and US?” She replied, “One second.” Maveli replied, “Ok, thank you” and rushed to collect his luggage. Though Maveli did not know English, he carried an electronic translator that his friend James Bond had gifted him. Maveli had attempted TOEFL after reading the book ‘Spoken English in 32 days’ that he bought from Kottayam bus stand, but failed miserably.

Maveli was impressed with the developments made by America. He felt proud of the fact that while Americans made turbines work using steam, Keralites atleast had found that steam can be used to make idlis. Maveli bought the latest 3G iPhone and immediately send an SMS joke to his friend in Patala (not to Sidhu; that is his friend in Patiala) - “Do you know at what time Keralites and Americans stand on one leg? Scroll down for the answer…… when they are wearing their underwear.”

Maveli was amazed at the two shiny silver walls that moved apart and back together again by themselves. He saw an old woman walking up to them, pressing a button, the walls opening and the lady entering a small room. The walls closed and Maveli saw small circles lit up above the walls. The walls opened up again and, lo behold, a beautiful twenty-something-old woman stepped out. Maveli noted in his mental diary to remember to bring his wife the next time he visited US.

But Maveli found it strange that people were kissing in the public, which was a very private affair in Patala. He even found that the reaction of the women were different. While all women in US were responding “kiss me gently”, “kiss me softly”, “kiss me like there’s no tomorrow”, the reaction he got while kissing in Patala were “don’t tell anybody” or “don’t tell my husband”.

Maveli went to visit the Statue of Liberty since he had heard a lot about it. As he stood admiring the crown on the statue, a Mexican told him that it is for sale for $1000. When Maveli gave him the money, the Mexican said he will get a ladder to remove the crown and never returned. When Maveli passed by in the evening he again couldn’t help admiring the crown. The same Mexican came and told that it is still available for sale for $1000. Maveli becoming wise this time gave him the $1000 and asked the Mexican to wait and said he will get the ladder this time.

Maveli then proceeded to Washington DC to meet Bush, where he signed an agreement to supply oil to US in return for uranium to power the proposed nuclear plant in Patala. The prices of oil fell dramatically and Bush was forced to make a public statement: “They misunderestimated me. There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.” [these are actual public statements made by Bush]

Maveli then proceeded to meet Keralites. He asked a young Keralite who was a heavy smoker, “Don’t you know that smoking is injurious to health?” The Keralite replied “I came to know the dangers of smoking after reading newspaper. Therefore, I have stopped..; reading newspapers, that is.”

Maveli subsequently went to Charlotte as he knew that Salil’s cousin lived there. Since he reached late in the evening, he visited a bar. The man on his right ordered, “Johny Walker, single”. The man on his left ordered, “Peter Scotch, single”. So Maveli ordered, “King Mahabali, married'. Maveli then flew to Fremont to visit Salil. But unfortunately, Salil was on his usual cross-country IR trips. So Maveli left a voice message and returned to Patala.

After returning to Patala, it is reported that Maveli has started using nope (for ‘no’) and yep (for ‘yes’) to answer questions. He has started saying hey (instead of ‘hello’) and eating candies (instead of ‘chocolates’), cookies (instead of ‘biscuits’) and yogurt (instead of ‘curd’). He has switched to diet coke (instead of ‘buttermilk’) and pizza (instead of ‘dosa’) for dinner. He has started taking cabs (instead of ‘taxi’) to go on the freeway (instead of ‘highway’) even if he has got to go (instead of ‘have to go’) to a place less than a mile (instead of ‘kilometer’). And it seems these days when Maveli listens to music, he says ‘yo man’ often.

God save US.. sorry Maveli!

I Don't Forget Anniversaries

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Fri, 5 Sep 2008 06:28:00 +0530

“Memory is what tells a man his wedding anniversary was yesterday”

Today is my marriage anniversary. I have been married for n years (I won’t tell you the value of n as it is a very large number and you will start guessing my age!). Coincidentally, Ambika, my wife, has also been married for the same number of years.

Ambika has been the best thing that has happened to me. If you wonder if she feels the same way, feel free to ask her and I am confident she too will agree that she has been the best thing that has happened to me. I am glad that I fell in love with Ambika over the few other girls I thought I loved. I am told by my women friends that the reason why god created man first and woman second was because he needed to have a rough draft before he made a masterpiece. If one sample couple can prove the hypothesis, look no further.

I met Ambika at a Chartered Accountancy class. I did not want to fall in love then, as I thought that it would be like learning how to cycle – would take a lot of time and would get injured in the process. But to my surprise, it was love at first sight. Then I took a second look. And a third. I have never looked back again. On our first date, like all men, I told her a bunch of lies which got her interested enough to go for future dates.

Being an extraordinarily handsome man, I assumed it my responsibility to marry the perfect woman so that we could produce children beyond comparison. So I immediately decided to marry Ambika. Of course, she decided a lot later. Ambika believed that the poorest people are the happiest. And now that she is married to me, we are the happiest couple. We used to always hold hands after marriage because we wanted to make sure the rings did not fall off since we paid good money for them.

We have been sharing things ever since – we use the same toothpaste though different toothbrushes, the same bath soap though different bath towels, the same dining table though different plates, the same closet though different clothes, the same television though different shows, the same bed…. Sorry, this is a family blog, remember?

All married men contend that marriage is not a word but a sentence. However I don’t agree; I would like to look at it as an ‘investment’ that pays big ‘dividends’ if you manage to keep up the ‘interest’ (from this you would have guessed my profession – yes, I am an accountant). My wife and I always compromise which has been the secret behind our co-existence; I admit that I am wrong and she agrees with me.

We have had a very successful marriage so far, because I practice in my life what I preach at work. I work for an outsourcing company and as a true-blood loyal employee I have outsourced the decision-making process to my wife. She is the boss in our house. I have seen the kind of things she does in the house as part of this job and honestly, I do not want it.

This does not mean that we have not had our rough times, like when I send my wife an SMS ‘I wish you were here’ thinking that it was a smart thing to do, but mistakenly missed the last e in ‘here’, or when I forgot my wife’s birthday. I realized at that time that our marriage can be defined as the alliance of two people; one who never remembers birthdays, and the other who never forgets them. During the process I found that the best way to remember my wife’s birthday is to forget it thrice. But I cannot ‘remember’ the last time I ‘forgot’ her birthday.

We have stuck together during the good and bad times all these years. Just a note of caution for the readers – families that stick together should bathe more often. We have a little girl amongst us now, our daughter Niharika. The store had run out of the big ones. And even the little one took nine months to download. O that note, the child experts say that men should not have children after 35. It may sound very restrictive, but they say that there is research evidence to support this. 35 children are enough!

Finally, you may ask what the gifts that we exchanged today were. My wife, a wonderful and great lady that she is (no, no, believe me, I am not saying this because of the gift!), gifted me a $1,500 digital SLR camera with multiple lenses and other accessories. And I returned it with an even more costly one – this blog! (because ‘little time is a lot of money’; yes I added additional words, but remember this is my blog?)

PS: If you assume that I was coerced by my wife to write this blog dedicated to her, then you should be married. Oh by the way, didn’t I mention that this is dedicated to her!

I suffer from Shopophobia Mallfeorosis

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:15:00 +0530

We used to build civilizations. Now we build shopping malls. – Bill Bryson

Shopping as an activity was something that did not exist in my life for a very long time. When I was a kid I used to jump at the opportunity to buy a litre of milk, a kilo of sugar, etc during emergencies (read ‘unexpected visitors’) at home and used to think that I was an eager shopper. But now when I look back, I realise my motivation was the odd 25 or 50 paise that I could make in the exercise. I probably never shopped for more than an hour or for more than Rs.1,000 of groceries till I got married. Since then, however, household and grocery shopping has become one of the biggest activities of my life.

I read about people who are in the search for the purpose of life or understanding women. I feel that they are still in the lower stages of their philosophical quest compared to me, since I am already seeking answer to the bigger problem of how shopping can be enjoyable. I have also not been able to find the answer to the question, ‘if I am shopping for windows would I be window-shopping’?

One major thing that irks me about shopping is the increasing cost of living these days. I am so worried that I could launch into a tirade about prices these days, covering everything from gas to chocolates. However, when I accidentally mentioned it to a store salesman, he retorted, “Sir, if cost of living is so high and obviously offensive to you, then why do you bother?” (to live, that is) After that, I have wisely kept my feelings on cost to myself.

I found a different approach to counter the rising costs. This is a secret and I would appreciate if you would keep this to yourself. Last time I went shopping at a store, I asked the vendor, "How much are these oranges?" "Two for ten rupees," answered the vendor. "How much is just one?" I asked. "Six rupees," answered the vendor. "Then I'll take the other one," I said.

Since I detest shopping, my wife, the nice and wonderful woman that she is, has volunteered to do shopping for the entire family. This sounds great, right? I too felt the same when I heard it. I thought I had figured out the solution for my life’s suffering. That is… until I found the catch. I had to drive her to the shops, accompany her down the aisles while she made up her mind deciding if chocolate coated almond cookies were better than peanut butter nut cookies, and – here comes the tough part – also offer my suggestions.

The last time I refused to accompany my wife to the store, the billing clerk at the store had a good laugh. After putting the stuff my wife bought in three hours into some thirty seven plastic bags, he asked her, “Cash or card, madam?" As she fumbled for her wallet, he noticed a television remote control in her purse. "Do you always carry your television remote?" he asked. She replied, "No, only when my husband refuses to come shopping with me. Since the India-Pakistan cricket match is going on, this was a sweet revenge." The genius that I am, I took the opportunity to call up my girl friend and asked her if I could come over to watch the match saying my television broke down – but then that is a story for a different blog.

The other thing that I find difficult is the vast areas that shops and shopping malls cover. I doubt if shopping as an activity existed during the times of Mark Twain. Otherwise he would have remarked that ‘shopping is a good walk spoiled’ rather than ‘golf is a good walk spoiled’. I often get lost in the vast shopping malls, which annoys my wife as evident from her question which I encounter when I catch up with her later on, “Why on earth can’t you keep pace with me, you snail?” (On that note, do you know why they don’t serve snails in McDonalds? Because McDonalds is a 'fast' food joint.)

Hence I have devised an ingenious method. Whenever I get lost in a supermarket, I approach the nearest beautiful woman and ask, "You know, I've lost my wife here in the supermarket. Can I talk to you for a couple of minutes?" You may wonder why; because it so happens that every time I talk to a beautiful woman my wife appears out of nowhere.

I thought my aversion to household shopping was a peculiar psychological condition that I suffered from. I was thinking about getting medical help, when I learned that all harried (read ‘married’; I somehow find it impossible to spell the first m in ‘married men’!) men experience from the same condition. I wonder if there are any shopping malls in Mars. I guess not…

This is the era of outsourcing and I would like to outsource my shopping activities. Those interested may write to me separately with references.

My Marriage to Aishwarya Ray

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:12:00 +0530

I married Aishwarya Ray (Aish) last month yielding to her relentless request. Little did I know at that time what was in store for me!

Within the first week of our marriage, I faced death threats from Salman Kaun, Vivek Kabirai and Abhishek Pachpan. If that was not enough, I escaped two attempts at my life and after each incident, all of them called to say that they were not behind it. I even wonder if Salman saw me as a ‘black buck’...

We went to London, Venice and Paris for our honeymoon. We avoided Switzerland since I knew that Abhishek’s chacha lived there. And Vivek was already hiding in the hills of Scotland – wide awake, though 'avivek'.

I did everything you would expect a newly-married groom to do on a honeymoon – book the tickets, open the door, and even make tea in the morning, and expecting Aish only to help me colour-coordinate my dress in return (what did your evil mind think?). But not only did she not do so, but she ruined me by shopping from every shop in the places we visited. Before marriage, I used to catch her in my arms but afterwards I started catching her in my pockets.

Whenever she embarks on one of her shopping expeditions, she used to announce, "I am going to do some shopping. I will be back in about $50,000 or so." Probably I am being too harsh on her; I must admit that she shopped only twice during the week - once for three days, once for four.

The demands went soaring from London itself when Aish asked for the Kohinoor diamond. I should have seen it coming from the bluish green (or was it grayish violet?) glint in her eyes when we were headed for the Tower of London. I got out of the situation by saying that we would have to negotiate with the Queen, which I assured her we will do while visiting Buckingham Palace (I am sure you have guessed by now that we did not visit Buckingham Palace later).

When I hailed a cab and told the cabbie, “The lady wants to go to Macy’s”. The cabbie, who I realize now was an intelligent chap, gave me a quizzical look and asked, "And the gentleman? Does he want to go to the bank before?" I still did not take the cue. On the way when Aish saw YMCA, she remarked, “Look, they spelled MACY’S wrong!”

It was a moonlit evening in Paris and we were atop the Eiffel Tower, when Aish, on spotting Louvre, said that she wanted to buy the Monalisa for her dadi in India. Imagine having to explain to the stewardess the reason for carrying the world’s most famous painting in the cabin! In Venice, she wondered if we could take couple of Gondolas to India. I had a tough time convincing her that our yachts in India were far superior. To cut the short story further short, I have become bankrupt due to Aish. I am visiting Paris next month to appear for the hearing of my bankruptcy application. My luck has become so bad that even my bank is in trouble. They returned my cheque with the comment 'insufficient funds'.

This is the kind of incident I believed would happen to someone else; but unfortunately I did not realise that I was also 'someone else' to someone else. I am sure harried (read ‘married’) men, who have had similar shocking (read ‘shopping’) experiences with their wives will empathize with me. I have served the divorce notice to Aish, considering that Christmas is just few months away. I am going to be more careful in future while considering marriage with Angelina Dolie and Sushmita Pen, who are pestering me. If you know about their shopping habits, please do drop me a 'line offline' (I liked the rhyme); I will be indebted to you and not to my financiers as I am now.

In case, somebody thinks that this post is a result of my imagination, I have attached a photo of Aish and me kissing, taken during our honeymoon. That should probably convince all doubting Thomases, Peters, Pauls, Joneses, et al.

[Disclaimer: Any resemblance to people alive, dead or not yet born may or may not be coincidental, but is definitely not intentional]

A Letter from Death

noreply@blogger.com (Salil) — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:55:00 +0530

“When you were born, you cried, and the world rejoiced.
Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice – Kabir”

Hi,

I am death.

If you are scared of me, I suggest you continue reading till the very end. Believe me, what I say here might be helpful to you. Else, you may stop reading and leave now because there is nothing more you need to know to live.

I visit everyone in the world once in their lifetime and will visit you too. But you deny my existence. The society you live in also does the same and encourages you to do so. However, the truth is that I am inevitable. I am the only certainty in life. I keep happening all around you. Why do you prefer to close our eyes to me? Accept me as I am and don’t fight me. It is the denial of my existence that is responsible for your empty and meaningless life. You live your life as if it is never-ending, worrying about the future or buried in the past, and in the meantime, you lose your present.

And then you will start to see life in a whole different paradigm. If you live your life realizing and embracing mortality, I assure you that you will enjoy every moment of it. Just take the moment and make the best of it since you don’t know what is going to happen next. Stop doing things that you don't enjoy and pursue long-term goals that make you happy. Be grateful for what you have. Learn to forgive and forget. Don't take anything too seriously and don’t over analyze anything. Tell your family and friends how much they mean to you. Live every day as if it is your last!

You have a good life.

Be seeing you...

/sd/
Death

[PS : This blog was triggered by the sad and sudden demise of our CFO two days back and is dedicated to him. May his soul rest in peace!]