Tag: Humour

Santa Sharpens Memory

The past week has been a busy one for Santa. He was supposed to fly to India to meet the President from Finland. On the way, he decided to see all the good children of this school in Dubai where the niece and nephew study, because they have been so good and reward them. There has been much excitement and chatter. The maps have been consulted multiple times by even those allergic to  Geography teachers to route the map from Finland to India via Dubai.


Seeing Santa in the corridors of your own school must be exciting. I can still remember being about a knee high with no front teeth sitting in a hall waiting for Santa to come. What? After he visits the President of India, he takes a detour down to the South and graces the Lena School corridors for those children have been good too. Duh. I remember sitting around waiting eagerly for Santa to arrive – I was seated along the corner, and this particular Santa, came strewing chocolates and sweets all around to general mayhem. Thinking back, I think he bore a remarkable resemblance to the woodcutter of the school. Anyway, the point is: while he was creating joy all around and throwing sweets, he also poked my eye, which had my eye watering, and my little mind up in moral chaos.

You see, all my life up until then, I’d been told that if you lied, or did not eat, or did something that was to discredit the name of the honorable clan from whence you sprout, God will poke your eyes. It was true, I had borrowed a sharpener from a boy in my class, and promptly lost it. I was in the process of honing several lies to tell him, one of the options being stout denial, another feigning surprise at the existence of sharpeners and the like. Still wondering how to break the news in short, for this boy was known to have attained fame by eating a worm. What if, his revenge was shoving one down my throat?  I hate worms not considering that they aren’t particularly esculent. Technically, I hadn’t lied yet, but maybe God knew that I was thinking of lying and sent Santa as a precaution.

I don’t know how the world rates North Korea allegedly having an arsenal of nuclear weapons and attacking South Korea and the world waiting to see how US would react, but it was definitely not as serious as the problem I faced. Soon after Santa left, a hurried meeting was called for. My best friends rose to the occasion as usual, and we all agreed that it had been a sign. The best thing to do was tell him the truth, and if he runs after me with a worm, one friend said she would take on the task of bringing a teacher on the premises by any means known to her.

I don’t exactly remember the end to this story – I just remember it being a huge anti-climax. It was all quite simple really. I was not chased down corridors with a worm in his hand, I know that for sure. So, it may be that Santa gave him a new sharpener as a gift and he forgot about the one I lost for all I care. But I do remember asking my father if I could have a sharpener for my very own in the sweetest tone I could don, simply fluttered with ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’.

I am sure it tickled the parent to have such a polite request for a sharpener, but these moral epilogues drained one.

And that….

Thanksgiving time is wonderful. The cold and bitter winds bring with them the holiday spirit, the twinkling lights and wondrous Christmas Trees.  Overnight, the bleak dreary streets turn magical and one hears of the avid shopper waiting for deals.

The crowds milling around in malls are a welcome boost to any economy. Some stores go for the cheap tactic of artificially boosting queues and lines just to get the public curious. Sauntering along in the mall, I couldn’t help noticing that the Coach store had a line snaking outside. I owned a coach bag once a long time ago when I was a proud bargain shopper on the platform shops lining any proud Indian city, and I must confess I did not understand the significance of the ‘Coach’ brand name then. You see, I picked out a bag, and the tenth grade drop out who worked at the store (well pavement really) asked me what label I would like on the bag – Coach or Prada.  I went with Coach, and he just stuck it on and gave it to me. I had no idea folks had to work this hard for the label – life, I tell you. I peered into the store and saw there was a sum total of 3 people in the store not counting the three sales personnnel and two cashiers. While, those poor blighters stood outside in a snaking queue thinking the store was bursting to capacity. Just waiting to get themselves a bag that cost anywhere between $400 and $5000. My heart went out to them when I thought of the idli sambar that might spill inside the pristine depths of the expensive bags. One of them was actually pure white. The husband caught my imagination before I ran away with it and reminded me that folks buying themselves a Coach bag weren’t likely to be taking idli sambar in their tiffin boxes to work.

Shoppers of all flavors spot the world. While there were the patient bunch standing in line outside the Coach store, these two shoppers shocked me by deciding to camp out for 9 nights outside Best Buy to see what the Electronics Giant had in store for Thanksgiving. I can’t think of any word other than over-zealous to describe this behaviour. According to the pair of shoppers, they did not know what the deals were going to be, but trusted their guardian angel to perform double duty not only by guarding them at night, but also whispering favorable deals to those who decide at Best Buy. A lot left to chance one would think. Of course, the strange is rewarded in unexpected ways, and they were gifted an iPad each for their trouble and the positive publicity they brought in for the store.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/life/family-camps-out-for-black-friday-sale-nine-days-early-2412259

But of course, this news items beats it all – at least the coachers and the random-best-buy-deal shoppers were trying to get themselves something they can use. Not exactly what can be said about these folks who were checking out Bernie Madoff’s checked boxers.

http://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek/0,29409,2030929_2209853,00.html

Whatever makes life interesting, so be it.

TSA Pat downs

I am trying. I really am. But these new TSA pat down guidelines are taunting me. Old time readers will remember the possibilities we explored when an assassin planted something up his …er.. ass to blow up the Deputy something Minister of Saudi Arabia, but his plans blew up on his own face/ass. Here’s the link for those who wish to refresh themselves.

https://nourishncherish.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/what-next/

I remember feeling biffed at the time because I had recently lost a carefully nurtured bindi collection that had gems from when I was a teenager to airport security all for having a small bottle of Milk of Magnesia with me in the same bag. I remember thinking that Milk of Magnesia is the thing to give the troops and travellers alike to avoid these conflicts of security. I mean what better check than clearing the contents of the bowels before take-off?

The new airport guidelines, I hear, announce clearly and loudly that a passenger is being taken for a pat down. Let’s move the scene to a Doctor’s office now for your convenience: Lots of people go to Doctors offices. When you notice folks sitting in the lobbies of these offices, you’ll notice a certain decorum they like to maintain. Rarely have I seen folks hitting it off and sounding positive seeing one another there. Most look resolutely into the magazines they are holding, or check sometimes non-existent messages on their phone. And there is a good reason for all that. They maybe there for anything and the last thing you want is for some prying Peter to ask, “So, will you be undressing in there today?” or “I hear you are being given a touchdown.”  or “Top down or bottoms up?”

But at airports, it is different. Man becomes quite the social animal there. He hollers at long lost friends and vague acquaintances – anything to pass time on or before the flight. Will the new guidelines dampen that? I am afraid so. I mean, there you are with Cheeky Chelsea and she taunts, “So, what’s up today?” Suddenly, the innocuous questions takes on sinister connotations. Did she know that the agent concentrated on the top part of your body during the full body scan?

Or Droopy Delphi who is mopping around as usual and you ask, “You look down. Are you coming down with something?” only to find Delphi is now teary eyed and calling you mean. Poor Droopy Delphi was given the bottoms-up version and is still moping about it. But you don’t know that. You just ask a civil question.

Yet, this basic thing seems to be lacking in the new announce-and-jingle-bells before carting your passenger off. Pat if you must. I mean if it makes you feel safer by just touching folks, go for it, but do it discreetly. Say, “Please step into this line.” and go about your patting. Why embarrass the blighters thus? The alternative is to go through a full body x-ray machine. A tough choice for travellers.

The problem with all of this is humans are not infallible. There is the scope for the tired authority figure missing something during the pat down or the x-ray scan. Then what would the aftermath be?

Ancient Wisdom – Where were you?

Every time I throw a Tamil proverb around, the husband looks bemused. According to him, my tone exposes the fact that I am parroting a proverb that my mother used. Many a time have I used this particular proverb looking most knowledgeable. (Yes, my mother looked immensely knowledgeable when she unbelted these gems.)

நுணலும் தன்வாயால் கெடும்), Nunalum than vaayal kedum

Roughly translated this proverb tells one to keep one’s large mouth shut to avoid getting in trouble.

I felt this is just the sort of proverb that would have served the Indonesian Information Minister (IIM for the remainder of this post) Sembiring, well in the recent controversy. Apparently the IIM boasted several times to his nation that he was a staunch believer in Islam. This in itself might have been fine, had he not gone on to advertise rather vociferously that he rarely came in contact with women other than those related to him. He seems to have gone on a limb and proclaimed that  Women must not shake Men’s hands.

Of course when he was busy making these speeches, he did not guess that there would be a day when he would be standing in line like a school boy expecting chocolates, and he would find himself gushing with pride to do just that: Shake the hands of a lady – not just any lady, the First Lady.

The IIM now claims that he was forced to shake hands with Mrs. Michelle Obama during her recent visit to Indonesia. The poor IIM was not yet aware that the meeting was recorded and put out with glee on youtube and elsewhere. There is no escaping the fact that Mr.IIM shook hands with Michelle Obama quite whole-heartedly and in fact used both hands while beaming like a radiant star. A point to note in the video clipping is the fact that most others only used one hand to shake Mrs. Obama own hand, but this man fell over himself and engulfed Mrs. O’s hands in his own.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40089526/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

Now, if he had kept his views on hand shakes to himself, he might have been able to frame a photograph of himself shaking hands with the World’s First Couple and placed it prominently behind his desk. Alas, now he is making matters worse for himself by tweeting about how he was forced to shake her hand when videos are reeling with proof quite the contrary.

Ancient wisdom – where were you when he needed it?

PS: I apologize to those to whom this news is stale – I can’t keep up with the strange and exciting that the news unleashes.

The Burp Aspirant

I stood at the back of the class to soak in some knowledge as I went to pick the daughter up from her school. The conversation I witnessed was illuminating to say the least, and of course I am always eager to illuminate my readers with the pearls of wisdom picked up from elementary school classrooms so here I am.

One boy seems to have triggered the discussion – when asked about his aim in life, this boy fearlessly set aside what he had learnt at his mother’s knee and answered. He said with a very serious face that he wanted to learn to burp really loudly.

To which the class responded in a first class manner. They positively received this response, beamed at him, giggled and cast him admiring glances. One chap whose eyes were gleaming with mischief even got up to congratulate him. I am not sure I would have liked to be the teacher just then. I don’t know what I would have done – probably attempted to burp loudly myself and show them how disgusting that sounded – but there is a reason I am not teaching elementary school classrooms.

The teacher groped for a while – he was evidently taken aback – but these school teachers are made of stern stuff. He came back nicely and told the class how it was easy to learn certain things later in life, but some other things it is easiest to learn when young. The burp aspirer did not seem convinced. He used a line used earlier by the same teacher that being young made it easy for them to learn things quickly. According to him, due and diligent practice at burping will make him a A-grade burper just the same way slogging at Science would fetch him A-grades in Science. There was merit to the line of thought obviously and I found myself unable to uproot myself from the discussion.

I could have given the boy career advice had I known the lucrative charms of being a world class burper, but alas I did not know that myself. Moreover, it was a competitive world out there – do you know how many people can burp loudly? Millions. So, what was the point of intimidating a burp aspirant no matter how young and inexperienced he is?

What I could have just done was to invite him for our Diwali lunch. I am not sure everything fits into the frame here, but there it is. A no-burper could have managed an A-grade burp after this meal.

BURP! Happy Diwali to everyone!

Japan to China on Jet Skis

There is something about software and the speed at which it evolves that makes blogging a challenge.  Just before I write about something, something else has come along making the older something obsolete and so on. But here is a gem I couldn’t miss. I love Google Maps – there is something about the app, that puts you in a trance. Once, I looked for a village that I am sure the folks at the village post office had forgotten existed. The only activity I’d seen in that village was when the bus came once in three days and honked at the end of the road thrice before leaving, and probably delivering the mail. I wonder if anyone has ever visited a place like that. It is eerie. Yet Google maps found a place very near it and even located a water tank for me.

I wonder how they mapped the place – maybe they used the dogs to bark out locations and recorded it via a dog frequency receiver. I would never know. It was like magic.

One day, I was sitting quietly and minding my own business when everyone looked excited and right enough their screen had Google maps on it. Close observation of the situation disclosed that somebody had tried googling directions for “Japan to China”

Google maps tries its very best before throwing its hands up in despair. So, it spat out directions that involved “Jet ski across the Pacific Ocean 782 km”

(Try any place in the USA to Japan, maps will ask you to kayak across the pacific ocean for 3000 odd miles! It’s actually a geeky practical joke played out by Google. – Anand enlightened moi!)
Well it is no surprise what I did after that – I tried ridiculous directions, but Google came back every time. If not the exact location, at least some place close. I finally got it stumped. I tried London to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and this time the poor engine groaned and sat with its hands on its cheeks sullenly.

Not yet linked to Fantasy Worlds – but Japan to China here I come. Get those jet skis ready.

An ogre or gingerbread cookies?

I picked up one of those best selling thrillers for light reading a few days ago. I must say! I am a software engineer and all that, and yet it stumps me every time I read one of these techno thrillers. Get me started on some code, and try as I might to design and think of all possible scenarios, seldom is there a time that I have the blasted thing to work in the first attempt. If nothing else, I would have taken care enough to miss a semi-colon in a particularly hard to spot spot. Without a once-over, I am bound to have let something slip.

Yet, these fantastic heroes and heroines of these thrillers just sit there and whiz through complex networks and hacking into the most complex systems set up with millions of lines of security code in a jiffy.

All I can do is sigh, and hope the sigh would transfer some of that luck over to me. Imagine how much time I would get to muck around with what to write if I could only do that?! Here, allow me to wallow in some scenarios for you…

Scenario 1:
The question in the practical examination in the Engineering examination read:  Design and code the shortest path algorithm and come up with the best route to get from the USA to Sevapettai village.

What happens to me if I were brilliant heroine like above?

The question could have stumped everyone, but being an excellent programmer, she had got it right in the first attempt. She actually proved that Djikstra not only had a spelling that wasn’t the shortest possible, but his algorithm could be improved as well. She was left to think and write about the pros and cons of having ogres as pets in the house for the remainder of the examination.

Scenario 2: I forgot my password.

What happens to me if I were brilliant heroine like above?

She never forgot her password because she was so good at cracking them. It took her 2.56 seconds to break into her own password and transfer all the data she needed, leaving her with 59 minutes and 58.44 seconds to twiddle her thumbs and wonder about whether gingerbread cookies had ginger and bread in them and why they were called cookies if it were really bread.

See the possiblities? Sigh again.

I Dare!

I wonder if you have seen or heard about the Ariel advertisement for detergent in India. The media company did not go for actresses, models, sportsmen and even politicians to star in their advt and went in for the serious effect. Watching a spot of Indian television always seems to remind me of the inordinate amount of time we spend thinking about and caring for our clothes. It tugs at my heart strings a bit to see that I don’t accord more than a second’s thought in selecting detergent. It is mostly void of thought while yanking on the phone and lifting it off the shelves at Costco. If this is the lackadaisal attitude I take towards something that is advertised for 1/3rd of all the slots, I wonder what I would be serious about. Tut Tut.

Still such is life. If I haven’t been too worried about that slight yellow tinge in my creamy whites before, why start now? Yet, I was forced to think about it with a trifle more seriousness when I saw a person I thought was worth emulating go on screen and telling you about how she cares for her whites. The guilt pang is a bit strong as the household has no whites to talk about anymore. All whites in the house are systematically washed with runny colours and their peace is shattered. I see to it. I give it enormous odds of 5 washes, and if by then I haven’t ruined it, I will change my name. I am not nourishncherish anymore! I shall be whitewash.

Given all of this, why do I ramble on about detergent? Well..I confess I felt numb when I saw Kiran Bedi go out on television and tell me how to soak the darn things. If she told me how to react to a poor child unable to fend for himself by the roadside, or even told me about how to rescue a stranded cat from high up a telephone pole, that was different. But, Kiran Bedi telling me how to wash my inner garments seems as un-Director-General-like as it is possible to be in Modern Civilization.

I remember my adrenaline high for several days after reading her biography, “I Dare”. To the feminist teenager, that is the sort of story that fills you with willpower to achieve and dream. I actually attributed my lack of spectacular success to the fact that I did not have to swim across a river everyday to get to School. I remember my friends asking if everything was okay with me, and I said, “Yes…I will!” or some such equally irrelevant answer simply fused with determination.

So, here it is. Just thinking of “I Dare!” has awakened that spirit in me. I will take a couple of whites and try Ariel Oxy on them to see if the Director General is as good as she claims.

Woof Woof!

The husband did well I thought, and yet they gave him a dog biscuit. I mean to say, I did think of rolling up my sleeves to bark at the fellow, but if a non-barker got a dog biscuit, what would a barker get? I was in no mood for bones at the moment.

The h. and his friends performed admirably at the San Jose Rock ‘N Roll half marathon. One of them actually ran like he had a fierce dog at his heels the whole way through and finished in an hour and 36 minutes.

Anyway, the point is when these marathons are conducted, there is a goodish amount of food given along the way and at the finish line. Having run a long distance, it is not uncommon to see marathoners sweating and panting , queueing up at these lines to pick up food. Bananas, oranges, water, rotten tasting fiber bars left to please the smarting eye on the kitchen counter till the lady of the house discreetly gets rid of it, salt tablets, foil cloaks – this is where they make their money back. I mean, these marathoners actually pay to run, so here is where they get their ROI is the general consensus. I once saw a fellow’s pants stuffed with assorted peanut packets, some chocolate chip cookies, three oranges and 2 bananas, and he wasn’t even halfway through the food line.

This, though was the first time I saw a dog biscuit packet in the accumulated finish line wealth. It is entirely possible one mistook the panting and yipped one at him, but I thought it mean. The husband was so biffed, he went and collected a beer bottle to make up for it.

Woof Woof and a Bottle of Beer!

Robots, Lord Indra & Global Warming

You know every time one of these scientists came up with a study on global warming, I shudder. I mean have you seen those photographs of what Earth would like in 40 years? I suppose we should get started on one of those research studies to see how we can spout gills to survive.

But the Summer of 2010, seems to have softened my fears a bit. We had a mild summer, with a few days of the Sun bobbing and fresh flowers. I spent all of this summer annoying my family and friends in other countries, mostly in Asia, telling them all about the mist filled mornings and the mild drizzles and the cloudy clouds. I don’t think any of them were too happy with this relentless gloat I had going on, but distance and love can be a great restraining influence, and I was therefore allowed to roam around sans physical injuries. Just before I transcended the levels calling for justifiable physical violence, the sun burst forth in all its fury. In fact, the Sun has taken it upon himself to expend all the summer’s worth of sun in one action packed week.

Just like we would not know how to react if we were to spout gills, some of us don’t really know how to react to this spot of Summer in the Fall. Some people have reacted to it most strangely by asking each other what they thought of Robots wherever they met. I am usually fairly quick on the uptake, but I was clueless – foggy if you know what I mean,  wondering what robots had to do with global warming. Maybe, I’d let a significant scientific study slip through the cracks.

Some others have become stranger still and talk incessantly about Lord Indra. I know he is the King of Gods and all that, but beyond that I am quite helpless.

All of these factors have left me with a sort of dull ache between the eyebrows. If the temperature goes up any more, and the robots become any matier with the Indian King of Gods, I might just do what the thermometer did.

Did you hear about the thermometer that couldn’t take it anymore? It burst.

I am sorry if that sounded like the rottenest thermometer joke in recent times, but it is the effect of a jarring note on a hot day. I was referring to the thermometer up in LA – it simply threw up its hands in despair and burst at 113 F

http://mobile.latimes.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=23162863&cid=17190&scid=-1&ith=0&title=Local

To all you folks who think I just became cuckoo with the heat, I finally figured out that robots have nothing to do with global warming and global warming has nothing to do with Lord Indra.

The folks are all buzzing about Endhiran, the new Rajinikant movie about Robots released this week. Since, it would be odd for folks to behave madly in the middle of Fall in the Bay Area, I suppose these movie chaps prayed to Lord Indra to tune up the temperature a bit. The passing madness could be attributed to the sun on the bare head, you see?

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=219283&id=690222330

All is well – watch the robots and wait for the gills to spout.