While other’s who think objectively and Muslim’s who use their grey matter even a bit are trying to condone these acts, in whatever little ways they could and trying deflect the blame from the religion by saying

If a Muslim carries out an attack, the world/media shouldn’t blame Islam.

Islam does not approve of killing a human being and it is a barbaric act.

Islam is perfect, its followers aren’t and the religion should not be blamed for the act of a few.

There are billions of Muslims around the world, its only few fringe groups that engage in such acts

And then there are some Muslims who live in denial and who have only the following reasons for any anything that is done in the name of their religion or any terrorist attack (though it is true in many cases, it definitely is not an excuse!)

Don’t you see it, It is the conspiracy of the WEST, CIA, MI6 plan all these attacks like the Sep 11 attacks (Watch Michael Moore’s Documentary if you don’t believe it)

It is all for Oil and billions of dollars of reconstruction contracts.

These Frankenstein’s in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Al-Qaeda, Syria, Saddam were all created by Uncle Sam, to throw Russia Out or to keep an eye on Iran, or similar political reasons.

I do not have any complains/disagreement with any of the above reasons. The last 3 reasons could sound outlandish to people for whom the world ends within the borders of their own country, but these can’t be brushed under the carpet as the mainstream media does.

But then there is another reason that a bunch of bigoted morons champion, which is beyond my understanding! and that put nicely is…

What do you expect from people who have been bombed for decades by the WEST and have their family, livelihood eliminated, for political and economical gains. It’s just revenge. The West is reaping what they sowed.

The justification is that they bombed us, so we kill them. They also say

When they kill us it is not terrorism, but when we retaliate it is.

There are many Muslims who strongly believe in this logic. And of course there is fringe and extreme elements in other major religions of the world as well, who believe in this eye for an eye logic, though it has not reached epidemic proportions yet as it has in Islam.

I have a major problem with this logic, Here’s what I think, in simplest terms,

If A attacks B,

and then,

B attacks A – Revenge
B attacks A’s son – Terrorism
B attacks A’s neighbor – Terrorism
B tries to attack A, but  harms/kills C as collateral damage – Terrorism
C (related to A somehow, blood, same city, country, religion doesn’t matter) attacks A – Revenge
C attack’s A’s son – Terrorism
C attacks A’s neighbor – Terrorism
C tries to attack A, harms/kills D in collateral damage – Terrorism

It does not matter in what context the above acts are done, National Security (of US or India or Pakistan or SriLanka or Israel), Freedom Struggle (of LTTE, Palestinians, Syrians or anyone else), Freedom of Expression, Holy War, or just retaliation. It simply doesn’t matter.

If an innocent person dies in your attempt to secure your nation, secure freedom for your people, secure your rights or in a holy war, it is Terrorism.

I don’t think there could be any debate on this at all. No one can claim any legitimacy for killing an innocent human being.

While I don’t subscribe to revenge, I can at least understand it.

But, when someone who has been oppressed, attacked, subject to inhumane treatment or torture, decides to avenge the injustice meted out to him/her by subjecting another innocent soul to same torture !!!, it’s just beyond my understanding why human beings would want to do that. Only animals attack without provocation, and that too only for food.

When something bad happens to us, isn’t it our first thought that no one else should go through the same pain that we did. Don’t we humans sympathize with people who have gone through similar trouble ? Isn’t this what human nature all about ?

However unfortunate it may sound, what we are seeing around the world now in terms of attacks and ridiculous ideologies are just the beginning and things are going to get worse. Its come to a stage where an individual believing in a certain ideology (not only the so-called Islamic ideology) is willing to kill and be killed or at least torture the hell out of another human being.

What’s the solution to all this mess ?

There are few things that could be done,

1. Unequivocally agree that there is absolutely no reason legitimate enough to kill/harm an innocent person.

2. Don’t judge others based on your beliefs and definitely not based on what YOU THINK your religion says

You may not be born gay or choose to be gay, but that doesn’t mean gays don’t deserve equal rights.

You may not eat meat, but that doesn’t mean people who eat meat are thick-headed.

You may not eat pork, that doesn’t mean people who eat pork are infidels.

You may like to wear mini skirts, but that doesn’t mean people who cover them up for religious reasons (out of their own will not forced) are backward.

You might think god is formless, but that doesn’t mean people who worship a human being as god or worship idols are idiots and foolish.

You might wish to be modest in your dressing, but that doesn’t mean a woman wearing a modern attire is a slut.

The bottom-line, every one has the right to do what they want (as long as they don’t harm other’s by doing so). Do not disrespect the people who do not follow the same ideology as yours. You are welcome to disagree, but disagree with respect and compassion.

3. Teach children point no.2 i.e tolerance & acceptance before teaching them religion. Even better don’t teach them religion at all! let them learn about it, if and when they are interested and have a mind of their own.

4. And If you do preach & teach religion, then please for your god’s sake don’t do it by saying,

If you do A you will go to heaven, if you do B and you will rot in hell and earn the wrath of god.

It should rather be taught by saying,

You should do A, because it is good for you due to reason A, B, C and If you do B, it is not good for you due to reason D, E, F.

If you cannot explain what your religion says in such a way, you do not know about your religion enough to teach & preach yet.

5. Do something positive, spread love without any bar, think twice/thrice before spreading a message of hate however legitimate the hate maybe.

Wear humanity on your sleeve, show off the pride for your country or language and keep religion in your heart! And I am sure world will be a better place!

P.S : All my over-zealous Islamic friends on social media, who are waiting for the next drone attack or bomb in an Islamic country, to start posting messages of solidarity for the people suffering, I am sure many of your non-Islamic friends will take you more seriously if you are equally vocal about these fringe groups who hijack your beloved religion. Of course, you don’t need to be sorry for an act of a lunatic, but you don’t lose anything by condemning or condoning. You only gain respect and credibility by doing so and show these lunatics that you don’t subscribe to what they are doing. Thank you.

Glad to hear that you’ll work on my suggestions. But why can’t you come in person and tell me that? You are THE GOD, for god’s sake, don’t sneak into my dreams, talk and escape before I wake up. Be a man, next time come when I am awake. I know what you are thinking, don’t plan to come when I get drunk. Next time, you should come when I am awake and in my senses.

Image via Wikipedia

Let me come to the subject, do you have internet up there? Is it Broadband or your own GodBand? If not, arrange it immediately. If you are lazy as usual to wave your magic wand and get it, I will give you my network key, I am sure being GOD you can figure out a way to connect to it and fool the ISP that you didn’t exceed the 15 GB limit. Once you get connected, create a Facebook and twitter account immediately. There are lots of advantages of being on a social network you know.

Gone are the days when people used to wake up, shower, get ready and pray. Now as soon as their eyes open, they pick up their mobile to check their Facebook Timeline. Some people even go to work on their farm on Facebook (Farmville). If you intend to be the GOD for many more years, then must be on it. There are many benefits

• You can brag about the likes you get on your status updates/photos to your other god friends.
• You can share the video of that beautiful angel dancing.
• You can also post some messages stating “God is great! – If this post gets 13697 shares all those who shared will get 1 year added to their life”.
• You can post some pictures of heaven and hell, so that people know you are not fooling around when you say “Go to hell”.
• You can also use the Check-in feature to let us know that you are at “The Angel’s Entertainment Club” or that you are enjoying people swim in hot oil at “Hell” so that we know that we shouldn’t be praying at that time.
• Imagine the look on people’s faces, when they see a notification saying “God has poked you!”
• You can also use it for the death invites as I told you in my first letter.
• You can do a status update before you lift off famous people from earth, something like “Thirsty for a politicians blood”, “Looking for actresses for my next play” etc

Next is Twitter, the main reason you should be on it is because those guys claim that they are quicker than earthquakes now. Yes, gone are the days when earthquake was your weapon of mass destruction. Now, as soon as you plan to shake the earth a little people start tweeting. Before the tremors reach various parts, tweets reach and they are already safe and out of the building. So now you might as well get on twitter and starting tweeting “Working on a Tsunami for Indonesia”, “Tell me what you think about my next Typhoon for China in a few minutes”, “I am gonna shake Japan now”, “Vote for the next volcano to erupt #nextvolcaniceruption” etc.

You can follow your favorite sons and see what they are up to. Block the people whom you don’t really care about. It’s easier to manage. You can also see who are talking about you with #GOD hashtag and reward/punish them as the case maybe. You can also check if you are the trending topic or if it’s the Oscars. One personal request, when you meet my granddad and grandmum up there, you can tweet me saying “hey @ramblinego just had a couple of drinks with your granddad at the skybar, he’s rocking” or “@ramblinego loved your grandmum’s minced meat for lunch”. Lets us know that heaven is not actually a boring place after all.

Twitter and Facebook are fun places basically, if you are the serious types then create a profile on Linkedin. But this is only for people who want to network and find better jobs, I am not sure if someone will give you a job on earth anyways. You can add your current position as GOD at Universe and your job description, achievement and they have a new feature now to add skills.

If you want tips, have a look at my profile. Mention whatever you want, except “Good listener” and “effective communication”. People will kill you if you do that.

Rest in next.

Regards

Your friend

P.S: Try creating a twitter handle @GOD :)

Related articles

• Yo! Playboy God
• Dear God, Are you from China

Yo God,

Why didn’t you reply to my last letter?. I guess you were busy preventing Salman Rushdie from attending the Jaipur Literary Festival. Dude, you may have managed to convince everyone to think that you are angry with him because he wrote nasty things about you, but only few know the truth. I know that it was a revenge on a bald old man for messing with one of your beautiful creations Padma lakshmi. Screw that man! I am with you, how dare he.

Let me come to the point. Continuing from my last letter about creating  improved version of human beings, I have one nagging question in my mind, it’s an adult question, hope you don’t mind. You gave us eyes to see, ears to hear, nose to breathe etc. Most parts have major function associated with them and some like mouth have multiple functions to eat and speak. But what is this joke about procreation dude. How on earth, heaven and hell did you manage to conceive the idea of procreation? What were you thinking? We get ideas about it after watching porn but from where did you get the idea?

What made you combine the excretory and reproductive systems? You know how difficult it is to teach kids about sex education because of what you have done. Parents teach the kids when they are young not to roam around naked, shame, shame puppy shame etc. When they grow up and are suddenly exposed to the fact that being shame shame puppy shame is the elixir of life on earth, what respect will they have for their parents?

You must have been one hell of a playboy to have thought something like this. Are you related to Hugh Hefner?  Tell me why you did this? You just wanted to have the sadistic pleasure of seeing people entangled in weird angles or you wanted to prove to the world that you exist by creating something so complicated. The only reason I am agnostic and not an atheist is because of this. Man can invent so many things, but he can’t match this innovation of yours.

Anyway, I just had my doubts so asked. Now, don’t change the design for this in the next version and make us asexual. Though its complicated, its fun. But give us some options, we should be able to program our act before we get into it. Some of the options you can include are

Setting	Options
Duration	T20, 1 ODI, 3 ODI Series, Test Match
Ambient Noise reduction	Alone in the house, Parents in the house, Outdoor
Positions	Options from Wikipedia page on positions
Type	Premarital,Marital, Extramarital
Partner	Natural, Unnatural, Super-Natural
Want to have baby	Yes, No

If the type is premarital or extramarital, then want to have baby option must be disabled. For type Marital the want to have baby setting should be mandatory, with default option set to “No”. If  it’s changed to “Yes”, a warning message as below should appear

“You have chosen “Yes” for want to have baby setting. Are you sure that you want to get screwed after you screw?”.

Also add some access control system to tackle the menace of insane men who are out on the prowl raping women and children. The moment they think of committing the heinous crime, there must be a warning message

“Beware! you have just thought about rape, one more time you think about it, your reproductive system will self-destruct permanently”.

Ok boss, that’s it for today. I have written something raunchy, so at least leave a comment for this.

Regards
Your friend

If you are religious and get offended with anyone being casual about god or can’t handle things in a lighthearted way, this is not for you. This section is all about my interaction with THE GOD, to make him laugh a bit and relax. I am not sure if I will continue to write more here, but here goes the first letter :)

Dear God,

This is my first letter to you. Anyway you can read my mind, so read this as I am typing it. If you are too busy enjoying women calling out your name in the night while doing some naughty things, then please read it later on my blog.

I am not like these other fellows who forever ask you for something. I am writing to you, because I was wondering how bored and jobless you would be, hearing the same crap from different people and not doing anything about it. I am also bored now, so for a change, I am going to give you some ideas to improve yourselves.

Don’t start thinking, What da this fellow, in his first letter only giving me, “THE GOD”, suggestions karkey?. I am doing this for your good only. Treat me as your friend; I am sure you should be feeling pretty lonely up there without friends. Ok, let me get down to business now.

Every body says you are the creator and talks big things about you. But first things first, where are you from? Are you from China?

If not, then why you are making such low quality homo sapiens. It’s been 500,000 years since you started making us, but you have made zero Improvements. Where is the innovation? Same stuff you are making repeatedly. That too, if you are spending time and making us, I can understand that maybe its work pressure, so you are not able to think about innovation. But like these Americans you have outsourced our own production to us, and now you are wasting time listening to all the prayers. Agreed, that you had innovated big time by building brain, heart etc., but remember, it was once upon a time. Don’t rest on your laurels man; continuous innovation is the key to success. Don’t you know that? How can I expect you to know that anyways? You are the boss, no performance appraisal, nothing for you.

Anyway see, I think it’s high time you introduced a upgraded version of the homo sapiens. Nokia, Blackberry lost the race to Apple because they didn’t innovate continuously. The same thing should not happen to you. One fine day if some scientist figures out how to clone a perfect human being, then you will lose all your value. THE END for you. In the words of your god Rajinikanth, Khatam! Khatam!. So take this letter seriously and act fast.

Start thinking about the new version of humans with some advanced features such as

• No old age, everybody’s age should stop at most at 25. They should stay as young as they were at 25 for the rest of their lives. (This is my wife’s suggestion, if you implement, give her some credit ok)
• Give some options to people, to choose the height, weight, eye color, hair color etc. Monday blue eyes, Tuesday green hair, I should be able to choose.
• At the mention of color, I got reminded of something. Why are you making people in different colors? Racist fellow. Americans are white, Africans are black. Why this discrimination? Fine, I can at least forgive that, within one country all are in same color. But what about the Indians, why the South fellows are dark and North fellows are white? True racist man you are. Give options to people, when we go to America we should be able to change to the way they look, retain our face and blend in.
• Work on quality control and make quality human beings. Eyesight becomes weak, hearing goes bad, backache, head ache what not. Fix all of them. Don’t be egoistic just because you are the only creator. All monopolies come to an end some day.
• I can understand that, there are always some unavoidable errors in mass production. Think of opening an authorized service center and a body store like the app store, where I can go repair and replace things that are not working fine. You are responsible for production, so you should be responsible for service also, not doctors.
• There should also be lifetime replacement warranty. If I come to you saying that I need a new body with certain features, then remove my soul put in the new body and send me back home.
• Do away with all these diseases, why someone should get cancer, AIDS etc. You are the master of the universe; can’t you save us from some silly virus or what? Install a new anti-virus, and most important don’t relax after installation, periodically as new viruses are found, send OTA updates of new virus definition files to everyone.
• Go green dude, why do we have to pee, poo, sweat and all. Do you know how much water is wasted in all this everyday? Convert everything to oxygen. After we wake up from our sleep, we should be fresh. Utilize those eight hours that go waste. Instead of using that to create bad breath and forcing me to brush next day. Build a cleansing mechanism.
• Why do you behave like loan collection agent when our time is up? Why do I have to become sick, old and die? Can’t you send me an Invite for the “Death” event on Facebook a few days before? I will RSVP it and then you can come and pick me up. Instead of that, one big show-off man you are.

There are many more suggestions like this in my mind, if I tell you everything in one day you will quit your job and run away. So this is enough for today. But don’t sleep over this also like you do with all the other requests that people make. I am telling you again, this is for your good and not mine.

If you are a Hindu then call a board meeting of all your god friends and decide quickly about this. If you are a god from other religion, you are one only, so if you need help pick some intelligent people you have taken back, and quickly decide on this. Anyway you have Steve Jobs with you now, he is good in designing things, make him the PM for this project.

While I have told you things you should do, I have been a bit harsh on you, don’t mind ok. Ok boss, I am feeling sleepy now, Rest in Next.

Regards

Your friend.

P.S: Once you read this, leave a comment on the blog, don’t behave like a lord.

“Coffeeee!! Teaa!!”

The vendor called out as he passed the coupe.

“Thuddd!” The baby fell on its knee trying to walk across to his mother. The mother ran to pick up the child and is busy placating him.

Ravishing young lady sat across him checking her flock of hair in the mirror of her mini clutch bag.

The chatter from the group of young boys engrossed in a card game relayed from above.

The train had halted at Varnasi for 15 mins. He hadn’t moved or uttered a word from the time he got on.

The newspaper covered Sanjay’s face; his eyes peered through his bi-focal spectacles and his hair rested neatly combed sideways.

A pencil in his hand was losing his grip.

What was happening was so new for Sanjay that he could only see the words “Quirky” filled alternately on a scrabble board. He shook himself from this vague hallucination. He had never been in such a situation before. He had faced some tough challenges, but never like the one today. After 30 minutes of starting his journey, his mind has been constantly thinking about the same thing over and over. The conundrum was just too much to handle for Sanjay. He has never been stuck like this for more than 3 hours.  “20 years of experience and I have always been right. How could it go wrong this time?”, Sanjay said to himself. Distraught with himself, he put the paper down and looked at the lady sitting in front of him.

Reema kept the mirror back in her bag with a faint smile. She was very particular about how she looked today. Her dress, a blue salwar, looked straight out of designer’s boutique, she had all the matching accessories on her. She would have easily passed of as a model for some ethnic wear brand. She was never so particular about how she looked, until today. Today was a special day for her, she was going to meet Amit, they went to college together in Delhi. Reema started realizing very early that whatever was between them wasn’t just friendship. “I gave him a few hundred clues, but these men!, they never pick up these things up”, she thought, thinking about the past. She was very apprehensive about taking the first step, and felt that he wasn’t interested in her. After college, Amit went on to work in Bangalore shelving his dream to do an MBA, as he was the sole breadwinner for his family. Reema went on to do her MBA. They carried on with their respective busy lives, keeping in touch occasionally through Facebook and chats. She never got over him though and the nostalgia when she chatted with him, kept her going for a few more months. But by the time she was out of college, Reema had almost given up on him and carried on with her career, when a mutual friend revealed to her that morning that Amit too was in love with her during college. Apparently, he did not want to lose focus on his career due to his family situation. As soon as she heard the news, she was jubilant. She felt strange to call him, though she wanted to very badly, but didn’t know what to speak to him.  The last time she heard his voice was when he called to wish her for birthday 10 months ago. She then decided to board the next available train to Bangalore to meet him in person and the let the moments do the talking. She was still fiddling with her mobile, in a dilemma, thinking whether she should speak to him or control her urge and surprise and let him do the talking.

At that moment a bunch of cards from the upper berth fell down near Reema, one boy just yelled out “Didi, can you please give us the cards” and simultaneously there was a loud noise of another boy playfully slapping the guy who put down the cards while calling him an “Idiot”. Almost everyone nearby turned their heads around to look at the boys.

The mother heard the boys and looked angrily at the passenger in front of her and thought “Yes, Idiot, this guy is definitely one, looks educated, but doesn’t know where to keep his bags” and continued placating her baby saying “My poor baby, we will hit that bag on which you tripped and fell” and gestured to hit the bag. Though she wanted to hit the passenger in front her for making her child cry.

Reema got up from her seat, picked up the bunch of cards and gave it to the boys and she walked in to the next AC compartment with all smiles. She dialed Amit’s number, her heart beats were raising, but she knew now what she would say to him, the phone rang and as soon as Amit picked up, she frist said “Idiot” “Don’t you know how to propose to girls, you are so dumb, sending message through a friend? huh?. Couldn’t you have just told me in college to wait until…” and she continued talking to him.

Sanjay also heard the noise and the word “Idiot”. Instinctively he picked up the paper and looked at it again and almost let out a chuckle, realizing what an idiot he was. After having solved crosswords daily for the last 20 years, he was not able to figure out that, 2 down in the crossword with second letter as D, last letter as Y and a clue as “Quirky” was Idiosyncrasy. “How did I miss it?, Strange!” he murmured to himself.

This is an entry for the “Tell a Tale” Contest.

Politics and politicians in India are associated with two words dirty and corrupt. Facebook is abuzz with posts of how politician A, B & C are doing nothing and AG, OG & 2G are being corrupt. I do not want to take specific names. But, I for one, admire and like the politicians, all of them. I love what they do. I can hear some of you say that, “Buddy!, the problem is they don’t do anything, about Lokpal, corruption, inflation etc etc and that’s why we hate them.”

Let me make it clear, why I admire them so much, the only reason is THEY ARE SO MUCH LIKE ME. I love myself and when they are just like me how can I hate them. Wondering, how they are like me?

1. When I drive, I don’t follow the simplest of traffic rules, I think I am above the law. The politicians, well they are also like that isn’t it when in power. They are above the law.
2. I plan meticulously to produce fake bills, rent receipts etc to save on my tax, I register my property for a lesser value and my friends in politics also cover up their income and undervalue their assets.
3. If I don’t get the tickets for my favorite movie, I will buy it in black by paying more and watch it. I do the same wherever there is a queue, just pay a few extra bucks to get things done quickly. The politicians are a little advantaged over here, they just need to make a few calls and throw their weight around for special treatment.
4. When I am in India I piss, spit and throw garbage on the road. But when I become an NRI, I would even happily clean up my dog’s shit and put it in the dustbin. In parliament and assembly our leaders hurl abuses and enter into fist fights, but are dignified when there is a foreign dignitary visiting or when they are on a foreign visit.
5. Given a choice, I would go to work and do as little work as possible and our leaders also don’t work, sleep in debates, attend meaningless functions.
6. I get to see people who are hungry, sick and poor. Though I feel bad for them, I don’t really try to do anything about it. I pray for them and thank god for giving me a great job and great pay. I can spend 5K on my new shoes, but I can’t donate 2-3% of my income. My Neta’s also don’t really bother about farmer’s struggling or people dying,  do they?.
7. This is my favorite. When someone says some crap, that whatever I am doing is not right, and that I am corrupt and need to change myself. I show them my Facebook wall where have liked “Lokpal”, “Anna Hazare” and also show them the numerous shares I made about corrupt politicians. My dear political leaders are an exact copy of me here, they show the critics the list of their meaningless achievements to show that they are not corrupt.
8. Worst case scenario, if someone gathered all the proof and confronts me about being corrupt, I just deny that I have done anything intentionally wrong. I tell them it was a oversight and point out that the my neighbor is actually the one who is corrupt. The leaders of our nation also are so very much like me in this too.

Don’t you agree that they are so much like me? That is exactly why I like them. I should hate only that old man Anna Hazare, they claim that he is not like me and very honest, if its true, I shall hate him with all my heart.

There are some profound words in an old tamil song I think from a MGR film which says “Thirudanaai paarthu thirunda vital thiruttai olika mudiyadu” loosely translated to english as “Theft can be abolished only if thieves decide to reform themselves”. No rule, Lokpal, Law can stop corruption or crime. Over time we will learn to outwit the rule/law, just like how we have done now.

Similarly, politicians and administrators will also learn to outwit the Lokpal even if it comes into force in its strongest form. Worst case scenario, if they are not able to outwit, and Lokpal is one all powerful body, people will start to aspire to be part of Lokpal rather than politics. We will talk about Lokpal as Dirty and members of Lokpal as corrupt 10 years from now.

If at all Anna Hazare had led a movement to change and transform oneself, I am sure, there would have been absolutely be no takers for it and he would have been termed a joker. Pointing fingers at someone else is always easier than looking at oneself.

In a democracy, if we need to see a corruption free society, the change has to be bottom up, we need to eradicate corruption from our minds, homes and daily life. We need to change the attitude that we have within us that we can get away with anything with a few extra bucks or the right connections. “Be the change you want to see”, after all the leader we elect is one among us!

Tale of A Story

Ajay was an IT consultant by profession. He was neither a geek with intelligence oozing out of every word he spoke, nor was he a dumb person. He considered himself to be budding writer. The reality though was that he was not a bud going to bloom very soon, but a seed buried 7 feet under the soil. During his college days, Ajay and his friends would drink on weekends and occasionally loathe the lack of right brain functions in them. None of them had anything to do with divergent thinking or arts. The only thing creative they managed to do was to make history in their college by lying around in different physics defying angles, in geographically unique places, after getting drunk.

Ajay always wanted to be part of the creative brigade. He was fascinated by people exhibiting talents such as writing, poetry etc. He loved writing. His first tryst with writing started when he wrote answers to questions he had no clue about in the exams. He would write a longer answer for them than the ones he knew.  Outside academics, he tried his hand at writing something related to computers and technology another subject that he loved, but when he sat down on his computer to write, after a few lines, he would slowly stray to watching porn, . Then he ambitiously planned to write about his preparation for an MBA in a blog titled “MBAQuest”. But when the preparation in itself went down the drain, what could he write about. All his efforts to keep his love for writing alive were hitting similar roadblocks.

After a bit of hibernation, just a couple of years back, when Ajay was dating a French girl, like a miracle, he was able to churn out a few lines that rhymed. The girl was completely floored by his poetry, her limited English prowess played a great role in that. Being naturally elated, he quickly tagged them as “poetry” in his blog. He was extremely happy that his right brain did exist. He knew that his lines were pretty good, but just to get a stamp of approval from someone who knew better English than his girlfriend, he shared the poetry with a few friends. He carefully chose the ones who would only appreciate it, even while reading it with their eyes closed. And by the way, the girl was not really French, just an illiterate fair girl from Pondicherry.

He continued to write on the blog about his thoughts and opinions. He had a vision to write novels, columns and he wanted to do it full time. But he was a little restrained in his vision and didn’t want to be a Stephen Hawking or a Dan Brown, he was happy to compete with Chetan Bhagat. He was restricted in his vision only because of his limited vocabulary. Lets cut the crap, the reality was that he liked the Idea of sitting at home doing nothing and writing a few posts, columns, novels and making money out of it. He could also claim that he was in dhyana about his next big idea, even when he was sleeping during the day.

He started sharing his posts without inhibition primarily on Facebook, some of his good friends appreciated it consistently. Though he did not crave for it, the attention he got for his original masterpiece was laughable compared to the likes and comments that girls invited on Facebook with a simple “:)” as a status message. Ajay even wondered if posting under a pseudonym through his beautiful wife’s FB account would get him more attention.

Ajay now wanted to graduate to writing stories. He had never written one and hardly read a few. But had experience in telling stories about his whereabouts to his parents and girlfriends when he was not found at the place he was supposed to be. He knew, that this was enough of an experience.He thought that if he had to become a novelist or a prolific blogger, he needed to write for a wider audience.

He started following a lot of bloggers and browsed through their blogs everyday on his iPad while traveling to office. No, he was not stealing ideas, but just getting inspired, you know. Just then he found out about a contest on a bloggers networking site about writing a story on “Love, Adventure & Miracle”. He was not really keen on the contest as he believed that writing was spontaneous and not induced. He wrote to express the thoughts that came to his mind and loved to express them with a touch of humor. But this logical reasoning didn’t last long. Soon he began to think like Rakhi Sawant, about the publicity he would get, even if by mistake he won the contest. He decided to give it a go.

Love stories were the only way he could club Love, Adventure & Miracle. But then the love stories he knew of, had only Love, Sex and Dhoka. He had no clue how to change Sex to Adventure and Dhoka to a Miracle. Sex at least is an adventure when you are young and a miracle when you are old, he thought. To seek inspiration, he scanned through other submissions that were already made for the contests. There were some wonderful romantic stories which no doubt had love. With dark nights and lonely road where lovers were stranded, the story had adventure and to get back them to safety, there was a miracle. He loved reading them, he too wanted to write something similar, a love story with a little bit of adventure and miracle.

5 Days before the deadline

In office, amidst a busy schedule to look busy without any work, he started to write on his Laptop. He believed that once he began writing, he would get his magic touch and would be able to complete his story. When someone came to his desk, he would look at his own story as if it was an unattended object at a railway station. After 2 days, he managed to write a love story filled with fist fights, a car chase and a miraculous rescue of the heroine to safety. But when he read it, he suddenly had a lot of respect for the script-writers of B-Grade Bollywood movies.  He knew that it was not his cup of tea. He wanted to write something different something unique.

2 Days before the deadline

He reasoned that the love in the title of the competition could be even about the love for his puppy. Inspired by his own love for writing, he thought he would pen down a story about an average clerk becoming a novelist and the trials and tribulations he faced in his journey. When he got the idea, he was thrilled, Ajay even quickly imagined his story being adapted to an art movie starring Irfan Khan in Hindi and Prakashraj in Tamil. If it became popular, he could always claim that’s how he became a writer. But when he sat down to write it, the ideas weren’t becoming a reality as quickly as his dream, the narration was so very non-existent that even Johnny Lever would refuse to act in it, if it was to be made into a movie. He decided that he wouldn’t try anymore. He just told himself that he was not good at writing stories and certainly not something that is not spontaneous.

The day before the deadline

The contest was ending the next day, he grabbed a glass of red wine, raised a toast for having tried, ate the burnt toast he had made and went to sleep. He woke up to a dream of having written a wonderful story for the competition and also winning it and getting his difficult to fit in a passport size photo face featured on the website. He jumped out of his bed. Chetan Bhagat is also chubby he thought. Wait a second, that was not why he jumped out!. He got the plot for his story, that’s it, he thought. He had finally hit upon a great plot for the story. That was his style, he thought. It would showcase his love for writing and he quickly made a mental note, Love – check, Miracle – check. But what about adventure, there was absolutely no adventure in the story. Well he decided to cook up something. He still had 8 hours in the day to think about it.

The D-Day

He decided to type out some lines he had thought of in the shower, during his bus ride to office on his iPad. As soon as he sat in the bus, he took out his iPad to realize that he had not put it on charge last night and he neither had a notebook or a pen in his bag. He quickly asked the fat girl slim seated next to him for a pen in English. She didn’t understand a word of English and kept on saying “No English”. Ajay could not even point to the pen in her shirt pocket, he was not ready to take chances of she misinterpreting it. He cursed his company for sending him to an onsite trip to Israel, where Hebrew was the main language.

He consoled himself and started rehearsing the story in his mind. As soon as he reached office, he opened up his laptop and opened up all the applications to pretend that he is working and a notepad to write his story. He planned to write until noon and continue with his work (unusually he had some tasks to be completed that day) post noon. He could stay up late in the office and finish his work if needed, or at least eat the free pizza they give in office for sitting late. No sooner than he started to key in the first line, the phone on his desk rang, it was a call from his manager, and he requested Ajay to join a important meeting. He tried to reason that he has work to finish, but the manager told him that he could do it post-noon and this meeting was very important for him to be part of.

His dream of writing a story for the contest was almost nearing its end. He didn’t give up and thought that he still had a chance given his quick typing skills. He went to the meeting with his iPad and found a place to sit, close to an electrical point and started using his iPad. The VP of the company was sitting in the meeting with a pencil and a paper and our grandson of Steve Jobs Mr. Ajay was pretending to take his meeting notes on an iPad. It was a nasty look from others present in the room, given that he had joined the company only a few months ago and was still in his training period and had nothing much to contribute in the meeting.  That look for Ajay was like rain falling on a buffalo.  He pretended to listen to the presenter and was busy with his story design. He was quickly jotting down whatever he had thought in the bus and arranged the ideas and flow.

The meeting was stretching beyond its time, it was supposed to be over by 11.30 AM and it was already 12.30 PM, there were people yawning and burping in hunger but the presenter was just rambling on. Ajay was getting restless, as he had to meet the deadline for his work as well as the story. He realized the plight of his colleagues from his previous office when he used to call them for meetings in the afternoon just to stay awake. Then all of sudden, a colleague said that he could smell something burning. At that moment, Ajay heard nothing, and his sense of smell became stronger than his sight and hearing. The voices drowned and he could not see anything, he also could smell something. Boss in the next room was eating pizza and garlic bread he thought, when his colleague pointed out to smoke from the projector, before he could gather himself there was a noise and the projector in the room conked. The meeting was called off for the day as it was time for lunch.

Joy knew no bounds for Ajay, he was quickly up and out of the room along with others. He ran to his laptop and started writing his story until the power was back. He grabbed a sandwich for lunch at his desk and completed 1/4th of the sandwich…oops story.

The power was back and he had to get back to work. He prayed for a fire in the building, to a power cut, to a bomb threat, to finish his story. That would be some real adventure for the judges of the contest instead of a stupid race against time, he thought. But none happened. He was reluctantly doing his work and after a couple of hours around 3.30 PM, the servers (not some one who serves you food, its something that serves you things that you don’t need) he was working on had some problem which could only be rectified the next day and he had to stop work. He was overjoyed and thanked Charles Babbage and the IT industry for all the uncertainties that they built in to his job.

He finished fingering (when writing with pen = penning, why not typing with fingers called fingering!) down whatever he had thought of. He read the story himself and his love and passion for writing a story was now in front of him (along with the 80 common mistakes in writing English). He thanked god for the miraculous idea the previous night and for following it up with quite an adventurous race against time to complete this “Tale of a Story”. Holy Shit! there was some real adventure lined up, his blog host tumblr was overcapacity!! He hurriedly apologized to Charles Babbage and thought that he shouldn’t have poked fun at the IT Industry and most of all not lied about his adventurous server crash!

Finally after an hour, the site was up and he published this story on his blog and posted it for the contest and took a ride back on the bus having a vision about winning the contest! and going on to write a few more of his stories, before becoming a novelist living in a orchard, drinking wine & writing stories.

Your 1 page appreciations and 1 word criticisms such as “khhhhaaathuuuu” will be appreciated, if you don’t then next story I will write about you, yes you, mind it.

—————————

Image: podpad / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Priya said “Ravi, you are such a gentleman”

Ravi was filled with disgust when he heard those words. He tried hard not to show his emotions and said “Good night, Priya. I will leave now, its too late, my mechanic will pick up your car tommorrow and give you a call once its ready”

Priya felt that his response was a little weird. They were good friends for the last 8 years and he would have normally passed a witty/flirty remark about her comment. He loved annoying her by flirting with her.

Priya went to sleep thinking how much Ravi had helped her over the years in many situations. He was the man to call out to, when she was in trouble. Even today when her car broke down when she was returning from her office at 11.30 PM, she made the first call to Ravi. He was sleeping, but without asking any further questions, he just instructed her to be seated in the car with doors locked. He knew the place she was stranded was unsafe, he kept talking to her on the phone, cracking jokes, throughout the time he was on his way.

Ravi started driving back to his home, those words that Priya told him “You are such a gentleman” were ringing in his years. He was reminded of something that he wanted to forget. But every time someone told him that he was a good guy or a gentleman, he couldn’t help himself thinking about what had happened a few months ago.

He was on a business trip to Singapore for 3 months and used to commute to office by train. He was away from home, was alone, and was not really enjoying the trip. He wanted to get back home as soon as he was done with his work. The routine was killing him after a month.

He decided that he would take the public bus from Monday for a change, at least he could look at different faces than the usual. He boarded the bus from the central bus station and found a comfortable window seat near the rear exit of the bus. As the bus started moving through its route, it was becoming crowded. He had a over-sized passenger sitting next to him and just when he was ruing his decision to take the bus, he saw her. It was love at first sight for Ravi.

She was just getting into the bus and she looked so different from the rest of the crowd in the bus. She was tall by Singapore/Indian standards, and had a flawless complexion with very little makeup, probably only lipstick, straightened hair and her attire seemed straight out of a Prada or a Gucci store. Her eyes were blue or green, it was hard to spot from a distance. Ravi was gaping at her, with his mouth open almost, when she glanced at him. He quickly turned to read his magazine.

While he was pretending to read, her looks were slapping him on his face to look up. He looked at her again, she was standing in the front portion of the bus and was moving a little towards the back as people were getting down in the stops. Just when he was trying to shift his gaze, she saw him again looking at her and smiled at him.

Ravi got reminded of all the Hindi Movies that he had seen, where once the girl smiles, the guy would hear wonderful music in his ears and break into a song. He was hoping that she would come close to his seat and at the opportune moment, the fat passenger next to him would get down and she would sit there. He smiled back at her and they exchanged a few more glances. Ravi was already dreaming about talking to her, going out with her, a romantic dinner, a date and what not.

The moment he was waiting for was about to arrive, she was close to where he was seated and the passenger next to him was about to get down too. He hi-fived in his imagination. The bus stopped and the passengers were getting down, she was moving closer to his seat and just when the bus was about to leave from the stop, she checked with the passenger if it was Orchard road and he said yes, in a hurry she requested the driver to stop and quickly got down from the bus. In flash, Ravi also got down from the bus.

She was waiting in the bus stop, looking a little nervous, as if waiting for someone. She had not noticed Ravi getting down in the same stop. After getting down Ravi had headed straight to a Starbucks opposite the bus stop and observed her a few minutes, while sipping his mocha. He felt that she was in some kind of trouble and what better way to win a girl’s heart than to help her in need. He moved closer to her and was about to say “Hello”, when she offered her hand saying, “You are Ravi, right!, Hi, I am Sheeba, Thank god you are here”.

Ravi was taken aback, he gathered himself and asked her “How do you know my name?”.

She again said “I am Sheeba, don’t you recall”.

Ravi replied politely “Do I know you, I am sorry, I am not able to recall”

“Ravi, I am Ramya’s classmate, we met a few months back at a mall in chennai when you guys had come for a movie”, she said.

The name “Ramya” from her mouth is all what Ravi heard. He got his senses back. Ramya was his wife. He felt embarrassed to have run behind a beautiful girl like a 16 year old. The embarrassment was heightened thinking that the girl was his wife’s friend. It didn’t take much time for the embarrassment to turn to guilt. He felt bad for having loved this girl for the last 1 hour and making plans to woo her.

Sheeba shook his arm, “Ravi, you still don’t remember”

“Oh yes! Sheeba, now I remember. That’s why I was looking at you in the bus, you looked very familiar, but I couldn’t recall. Sorry”, he lied.

“I recognized you as soon as I saw, but with this bloody bag in one hand and holding on to the rails with another, I could only smile at you. When you smiled back, I thought you had recognized me”, Sheeba said with a little disappointment.

“So do you work here? Close-by?”, she quipped.

Ravi couldn’t tell her that, he was attracted to her and got down 3 stops before his actual destination.

He couldn’t look at her beautiful eyes anymore. Ravi quickly pointed out to a building on the horizon and said “Yes its about a couple of Kilometers from here, I get down here and walk to the office, some exercise, you know”.

Ravi was cursing himself for being such a loose character. His wife’s face was in front of his eyes and he realized that he loved her beyond imagination to have done something like this.

Sheeba then said, “Ravi, its my first trip abroad, I am here on a project and supposed to reach this place” and gave me a piece of paper. She added “A colleague, told me that he would be waiting for me at Orchard Road, but he is nowhere to be seen”.

“I just arrived last night and do not have a Singapore mobile, can you just call my colleague on this number and check where he is”.

Ravi looked at the address and realized that she had got down at the wrong end of the road. He gave his phone to Sheeba and asked her to inform her colleague, about the situation and that she would reach office with him.

Sheeba said, “Ravi, thanks for the offer, but you must be getting late for your work, I will take a cab”.

Though he wanted to run away from her at that moment, Ravi insisted and said “Its OK Sheeba, I will go with you and drop you at your office and mine is only a few blocks away from yours”

Ravi dropped Sheeba in her office and she thanked him and said “My friend is lucky to have you as her husband, you are such a gentleman”

The guilt of going behind someone else despite being happily married was too much for Ravi and he decided that he would tell Ramya what happened that evening. He thought “Yes, I did not stray, I am not having an affair, but falling in love with someone else even if its for a moment when you claim to be in love with another is wrong”, he thought.

In the evening, he logged on to his laptop to do a Skype video chat with his wife. Ramya said “My dear husband, you are so adorable, Thanks for helping out Sheeba today, I had a chat with her today, she was all praises about you and I am so proud”. He couldn’t muster the courage to tell her the truth.

Ravi reached home, it took him more than double the time driving back, thinking about all that had happened. He rang the bell and Ramya opened the door and said “Did you drop Priya home? my darling gentleman husband”, before she could complete the last 2 words in the sentence Ravi kissed her on her lips and said “I am tired baby, lets sleep”.

• Multiple partners for playing mummy daddy during LKG to First Standard.
• Inventing the school game “Coin Drop, Color Spot”. (2nd to 5th Std, and don’t ask me color of what)
• Proficiency in all the abusive words in Hindi, English, Tamil by 8th Standard
• Starting to Smoke and Drink between 9th and 12th Standard.
• Falling from the bike twice when it was stationary and never while riding it.
• Bunking college for a month without lack of attendance.
• Getting lost (and later found by others) after being drunk. (twice)

I am sure that many of my esteemed (accused) friends reading this would also have similar or much more illustrious achievements. Some of my more fruit (good boys and girls) friends would have achievements such as First in school, First in college, Gold medal, Employee of the month etc.

Finally! I made you listen to me Bill!

Despite such a colorful achievement list, sometimes I used to feel that I have not done enough. Used to look at these really great people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc and think, “Inkey pass kya hai, jo mera pass nahi hai?” (What do they have that I dont have?)

I travelled far and wide in my room in search of the answers for my questions. Then on one ABSOLUTely dark BLACK kNIGHT at 8 PM, I figured out why these people are great.  No, its not the same battered and bruised concepts of dedication, hard-work, creativity, perseverance etc etc. They cannot become great, all of sudden just like that. There are many who do these things. What’s so different about these guys?

People like Steve Jobs are born out of a widespread social initiative of a  secret brotherhood of people who act together sub-consciously for benefit of the society leaving behind their personal goals.

Haven’t heard of this clandestine community? The brotherhood is such a well kept secret that its members themselves do not know that they are part of it.  Its US, You and Me, the mediocre and average people in this world. Our community is solely and only responsible for the greatness of each and every single great person living in this world. We make these nerds look good.

Just because we did want to become great, they appear great. The beauty of our community is we can make some ridiculous things look great, like the leaning tower of pisa for example, touted as tower to touch the sky by a bunch of idiots, and finally ended up only as tall as the anna nagar tower, we still made it as one of the wonders of the world.

Ok, let me explain this a little more, with a little bit of history. Can there be anybody greater than these guys who invented/discovered fire and wheel ? Do you know their names?

Their names are not lost because the reporter working for the stone age times forgot to carve it on stone. Nobody gave a damn about these inventions. One guy invented fire, the other the wheel, one invented the plough, the other something else. They were all great. If the guy who invented fire told the guy who invented wheel “Boss, without me, you can’t eat good food” the guy who invented the wheel retorted “You remember the elephant that we killed last night, thats our dinner, how do you think we are gonna move the meat to the kitchen”.

Ok forget the stone age, just imagine for a minute that your mom is an astronaut who goes on moon missions every weekend, your dad heads Apple, your little sister invented twitter and elder brother invented Facebook and you are the founder of Microsoft. Who among you is great ? Now imagine every family has a story like this. What is greatness ?

When everybody is great, greatness has no-meaning. Its only us, who give meaning to greatness.

Not to mention the problems with greatness. When you become great you cover-up the truth and become ruthless. We all have read those various messages on FB about how women do this, do that and are great. You can test their ruthlessness by asking your girlfriend/wife “What’s so great about you?”. You also want to know how they cover-up the truth, well just switch on the bedroom light and look at her face after she sleeps.

When you are an ordinary average man, you can live happily. But when you are a superman or spiderman you have to do crazy things like wearing your underwear over your pants and hanging upside down from buildings and you can’t even peter vuttufy about your skills to your girlfriend.

In the corporate world, Facebook eventually killed Orkut and buzz. Google is retaliating with Google+. Apple keeps filing patent suits against Samsung. There are many many examples of such ill effects of being great. The world of greatness is filled with such terrorism. Its a bad bad world.

Its easy to be a great man. Tomorrow, if Mark Zuckerburg asks you to take over and run Facebook many of us will be able to do a good job, even with only a 20% hike in salary. (Some will even quit the following year, cribbing that the hike is less than 15%). But can he go and work in your office with a 100% hike? let alone do a good job?

After that fateful night, I realized what a great service I am doing to the world by containing my aspirations of becoming great. Every morning, I tell all the celebrities who appear on Times of India, “If i and all become great know, that’s all”.

Be Mediocre! Be Happy! Be Selfless ! Be the Benchmark for Greatness and take pride in making those silly achievers look great!

P.S : What did you think? Steve Jobs said “Stay Foolish and Stay Hungry” to inspire you to be great?. Hell No..! He requested you to stay foolish so that you can create many more people like him who are hungry to achieve greater success and most of all ensure that greatness exists in this world and in the dictionary.

Conception of the Idea

Before I get into the actual business idea, I thought it would be wise to get into how I actually got the idea.

I lived in Dubai for a couple of years. It is a city where on weekends half the population (who perennially think they are underpaid but are well paid and underworked) is in the shopping malls (doing nothing but eating at KFC/McDonalds) and the other half (who work their ass off and get paid peanuts) spends sleeping.

Of course, I belonged to the first category. After spending hours in the shopping malls and eating only burger and coke, invariably I used to get a severe headache and would want to have a good coffee.

Unfortunately in phoren land you only get Cappucino and mocha. Even if you drink a bucket full of these varieties of coffee (where they add things like cream and caramel which we Indians are used to seeing in pastries) they are no match to a masala chai or a filter kaapi (not coffee).

And the idea was born!

The Idea

THE Coffee

Not only in phoren countries even in India we see in every locality that a lot can happen over a coffee (Cafe Coffee Day stores). Even before these stores arrived in India, there was a lot happening at our T-Stalls. But no one took it to the next level! We drink the Cappucino’s, Mocha’s and Frappe’s not because we like them, but because they are the “in thing”.

The idea is to take the traditional indian chai and kaapi and the t-stall snacks to the next level. To make them the “in thing”. Make people want to hang out at the t-stall sipping a cup of filter coffee in a Dabara Set and make it a cool thing to do!. A chain of high-end t-stalls serving authentic and real coffee and tea is my idea!

T-Stall

The T-Stall would serve all the favorites you could find in a T-Stall in various parts of the country.

The menu would be pre-dominantly in terms of hot beverages Filter Coffee, Instant Coffee, Chicory Coffee, Chai, Masala Chai, Elaichi/Elakkai Tea, Ginger Tea,  Cutting Chai, China Tea and cold beverages would be Rose Milk, Badam Milk etc. After a bit of research also add specific flavors of tea and coffee as it is consumed in various parts of the country. A coffee in Andhra is not the same as in Tamilnadu. A Kerala nair shop tea is no comparison to one served by the sardar in punjabi roadside dhaba. They are all different and all these will be branded and served.

Apart from the beverages, the shop would also serve choicest snacks available in the T-Stalls across the countries. Hygienically prepared Butter biscuits instead of cookies and bajji/bonda/murukku instead of pastries.

Branding of Tea/Coffee

The shop will have no difficult to pronounce names like Cappucino, Machiato, Americana etc. People see the name and they know what to expect. The menu would look something like this.

• Iyer aathu kaapi (filter coffee)
• Ithu Bru Ma
• Chechi Chaya (Mallu Tea basically!)
• Bips Sips (Bengali tea named after Bipasha Basu)
• Anna Hazare Tea/Coffee (In Pure Milk, no water)
• MalaaiKha (Tea, Malaai maarkey)
• Tihar Tea (More water less milk)
• DMK (Coffee/Tea Pot for a group)
• ADMK (Supersize coffee for one person)

And they won’t be served in Grande, Tall and Medium but in Full, Half, Quarter, Cutting!

Occasionally we could offer even Yecha Tea sipped by celebrities like Namitha/Shriya etc to attract crowd :)

For all those, pseudo americans (indians who act like they were born and brought up in america) who still want to have cappucino and mocha, they will be served (only until we make it uncool) of course under insulting names such as

• cuppakanom or copikaun (cappucino)
• mokka or merachacha (mocha)
• american kottai vadi neer (americana)

The Lounge Concept

Now, he's a true Barista!

The T-Stall would be a stall only its name and would match the phoren rivals in its ambience, again with a difference. It would not be a boring place with some well designed sofas/seating where park your ass and chat for hours.

Instead it would be a combo of 4 different styles, clearly distinguished, in each shop.

1. Phoren lounge with furnishings that are comfortable and cozy similar to a coffee day or barista but designed as close as possible to replicate the t-stall benches.

2. A Local lounge with bench and tables, of course designed tastefully, replicating the t-stall atmosphere but neat and sauve.

3. An area where you can keep your tea/coffee cups on a table, but you yourself will stand and have your coffee/tea with your colleagues in a quick break from office.

4. An outdoor area where you can lean on your bike or someone else’s bike and have your beverage as well.

The coffee/tea would be served in the cutlery of your choice

• phoren style
• t-stall style (the thick t-stall style glass)
• dabara set
• paper cups
• snacks like bajji/bonda/samosa in newspaper!

Some other important features of the t-stall would be

• All T-Stalls will have the huge tea making boiler as part of the decor.
• The decor would incorporate all the elements of a local roadside t-shop.
• Person making the Tea/Coffee will be called a Master and not Barista
• Masters would do the usual maneuvers that you see in T-Stalls.
• The Servers will be called Chotu/Thambi, even if they are huge and well built.
• The official attire of people who work in the T-Stall will look like a Lungi & Banian (of course aesthetically and stylishly re-designed by Manish Malhotra/Armani depending on the promoter’s capital)
• Facility to smoke, Tea and dhum (cigarette) are inseparable for a few people.

The Market

The market would be all major Indian cities and the major shopping malls in the cities to start with moving on to other places. Apart from that, major international cities with a huge indian diaspora like Dubai/Singapore/Malaysia also have excellent potential.

Closing Time

I thought I would be able to pen down whatever I had in mind, but the post seems to be going on and on with my ideas, so I have stopped with some unique features of the T-Stall. The barrier to entry to this type of business is very low and I wish I could start it with a bang with stores across all the major malls in Dubai and then move on to Indian cities with a bang.

Any rich investor reading this, please donate a few million dollars to make this idea come true.

Any real entrepreneur reading this, if you do decide to implement this idea, please recruit me as a consultant or at least give me some credit.

Until next time,

yours truly,

an entrepreneur who failed without trying.