8 Lessons from my 8-month old

My daughter is 8 months old as of yesterday.
I love her a lot. And thank her for sharpening my following 8 skills. 

Patience: She can be cranky. She can be crying. Time is the only winner. Usually.
Appreciation: Moms are the greatest. Period. And credit too to the entire support crew.   
Time Management: She has no plans. You better have one to work around it.
Inquisitiveness: Everything is new for her. It will be for you too. If you are ready to see it that way.  
Effort: Some activities just need to be done hourly or daily. Sustained effort is the only choice.  
Nuances: Small things bring them tons of happiness. You realize there is so much more to life. 
Clown faces: You will dance. You will make faces. You will do anything so you can see her laugh.
Energetic: She is a bundle of energy many a time. You will become one at all times.

What are the lessons your infant has taught you!?

Top 5 side effects of Yahoo! 'No WFH' policy

Marissa Mayer's new 'No Work from Home' policy for Yahoo! has been creating news for the right and wrong reasons. Here's a list of the top 5 side effects on the tech world - 

1. Facebook cancels Yahoo! deal given lesser time spent by Yahoo! employees
2. Microsoft threatens search deal cancellation since Skype has not yet made itself useful for in-person meetings
3. Yahoo! search shows a drastic % increase in traffic courtesy employees who don't want to be seen using Google
4. There is widespread hatred for the free Android phones and iPhones given the default ring tones that have been going on all day in office
5. Foodspotting traffic quantity spikes up courtesy mass consumption of free food; traffic quality deteriorates given same 5 items are being photographed from every angle every day!

Any more, kindly share in the comments :)

Disclaimer: I am an ex-Yahoo! and this is just in jest :) And largely fictional!

30 Things you should know about a Tamil Wedding Reception

1. One amongst the couple is a foreign-settled expat that has come to India to tie the knot.
2. The match has been made courtesy bharatmatrimony.com or better still, tamilmatrimony.com. If not, the guy saw the girl at some religious function at home.
3. The wedding is scheduled a few days before the start of the ‘no-good thing can be done’ Margazhi month.
4. The gift you should buy is one amongst a million clocks at the nearest gift shop or a coupon from any Lifestyle.
5. If you are confused between wearing a formal dress and a traditional South Indian one, always choose a kurta-jeans combo! The groom will probably be wearing a glossier version of the same. Or a Raymond's suit.
   
6. Don’t drive past the reception hall if you see different names outside. South Indians have more name aliases than the number of fake IDs you had during chat-room and Orkut days.
7. Chennai autos usually charge triple the regular fare. For reception hall areas, it goes up to multiples of 5. So taking the car is a better option.
8. The car park will have 1/10^th the size that is actually required to hold the crowd. People who think they are clever by coming in late always end up having to park the car a few streets away.
9. The invitees typically include family, friends, friends of family, family of friends, random maamas and maamis and so on and so forth.
10. You should neither land up too early (as you might be asked to do some work) nor too late (it might be too obvious that you have just come for the food)
11. The bride and groom will always land up 45 minutes after the time that is printed on the invitation. If you want to one-up them, land 1 hour later.
12. The practice of giving some sugar candy and sprinkling rose water is passé. Don’t be perturbed about abandoned front benches with the designated folks munching some bhelpuri in a corner.
13. If you have a sweet tooth, it is a good time to stuff it in. Use the sugar at the front-bench to good effect.
14. You could also steal the rose water sprinkler from the front-bench and provide some laughs to the gang by sprinkling it on unsuspecting maamas and maamis while you are seated.
15. You will always end up meeting one maama or maami who will question you about things that you don’t want to answer.
16. You will occasionally meet a childhood friend that you never cared about at school but have to act as if you were only thinking about them all these years.
17. You will meet a good looking girl that you once had a crush on, but is now wearing a 9-yard saree to cover the triple-layer fat that she has put on after delivering 3 babies.
18. While waiting to meet the couple, you will be served one of two juices – pineapple or grape. The only binding factor is the throat ache and/or cold that you have afterwards.
19. The queue to meet the couple is longer than the one at the American consulate in Chennai.
20. A good way to beat the queue is to know one of the parents well enough; there will be a lot of elders who flout the queue, don’t let your tempers flare!
21. When you meet the couple, they will have an artificial smile, and always utter the same two phrases – ‘Thanks for coming’, and ‘Please have food and go’.
22. ‘Best of Luck’ is an accepted wish. In addition to wishing someone before their exams and Formula-1 races, it can also be mouthed at couples starting their journey into marital bliss.
23. Prior to meeting the couple, decide on whether you will pose for the photo camera or the video camera – the two people who handle it will fight to their death over who gets your attention.
24. The live music concert will have a pair of twins singing. Where cost cutting has been employed, you will listen to pre-recorded ‘heavy’ music. There will always be a few elders who feign Carnatic music knowledge parked in the front seats.
25. If you want first choice of all the buffet items, go in early for the food. The later you get in, the more the number of missing items from the menu.
26. The buffet will have a panneer gravy dish, Gobi Manchurian dry, bisibele bath, dosa, bhel-puri and ice-cream (over and above a million other cross-country, multi-colored oily dishes). Don’t waste time on the sambhar, rasam, salads etc. that you can get for less than 20 bucks at the restaurant outside the hall. Whatever you eat, curd rice is a must at the end of it all.
27. There will be a mom holding out an ice-cream for her son as if his life depended on eating it. The son has gotten his hands so messed up with eating the other buffet items. Requesting for a finger bowl at the end of the buffet is not encouraged!
28. After food, you feel obligated to stay longer to appease your friend. The bride and groom don’t care less. So you can actually leave anytime you want after the food.
29. While going out, you will need to compulsorily carry back home the useless bag that has one coconut and some betel leaves; if you don’t, you will offend the elders around.
30. After coming back home, you are within your rights to think that Tamil receptions are the most boring events ever and curse yourself for missing the IPL match…

Any more must-knows, kindly add them in the comments section...

10 signs that you should run away from a restaurant

Have you ever entered a new restaurant in two minds? Whether to risk it and have food there. Or run away at the slightest hint... Here are 10 signs that should force you to do the latter -

1. Valet parking guys are fighting amongst themselves to take your car; for all you know, they might have to wait many days for the next customer
   
2. There is a longer queue to the restroom than to the restaurant
3. The number of waiters is greater than the number of people eating in the restaurant; also - a few of them are having their own joke after seeing you come in while the others are busy fetching parcels from the opposite restaurant
   
4. The perfume smell is awesome; however it is not emanating from the non-bathed rich folks but from the room freshener used to remove the food stink
   
5. The ambience is confusing and shady - the walls have too many paintings to cover the cracks, or there are too many coochie-cooing couples with hardly any food in their plates, or the customers look like goondas from a Rajini movie
6. The phone is continuously ringing but the answerer asks for the person to come the next day, to collect his money
   
7. Instead of music, you can hear a soft prayer, from those eating the food
   
8. You are confused if the bowl that went past was a soup bowl or a finger bowl
9. The menu serves both Idli and Chinese Noodles
10. People are congregating in the center of the table, emptying their wallets, watches and chains to pay the bill

Anything more, add in the comments section!

10 things you should stop doing on Facebook

Now that everyone and their grandfather is on Facebook, you should stop doing the following things on this social network. Only because they have been used, misused and overused to death. Here's the list...

1. The 'Dfghsjfldjf' status message - For God's sake, lock your phone. Or stop giving it to your kid.
   
2. 'Go Knicks!' - You American sport aspirational fanatic who needs to desperately shed the 'desi' image, stop bothering the common man cricket fans.
   
3. '#fb' at the end of your status - Hello Twitter folks! Lazy bums. Can't you use Twitter and FB for different things please?
   
4. 'Copy paste this to show your...' - We know beyond that, you never did anything for that cause. (A variation of this is the paranoia message saying Facebook has changed some privacy setting and confusing the heck out of people)
   
5. Talking about your FB usage - Do you ever go to office and tell folks around you 'I am not working enough'? Same with FB, you don't have to put a status saying you are not using FB as much as you used to.
   
6. Liking your own comment - Losers! An alternate ploy is to pay someone else to do this if no one else genuinely wants to like your comments (Another version of this is plugging in your own blog, which will certainly happen for this one too)
   
7. Use that friend finder - Everyone who bothers about you or you bother came into FB donkey's years ago.
   
8. Tagging a million arbit ppl in a photo - Just because you want everyone to look at that photo, which has you and your dog probably, don't go on into one tagging spree.
   
9. Putting your baby photo as your display pic - That display pic is also for your friends to quickly scan the feed and check updates. We can't differentiate between one baby and another. You have an infinite-capacity photo album waiting to put your baby photos.
   
10. Complete albums with no captions - For this one reason, 'Select All' should be banned. You get to see 5 versions of every single photo - each having different exposures of your teeth. And worst of all, absolutely no context to any image.
    

Any more such trends, please leave it on the comments!

10 reasons why eating in a buffet is similar to playing cricket

Yes. A pretty vague comparison. But if you look at it in-depth, you will realize that going for a team buffet is very similar to playing a cricket match. And here’s why…

	In cricket...	In a buffet…
1	The team-split between batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders	The split is between grass-eating veggies and non-veggies who only eat something that walks, crawls, swims or flies on earth. The fence-sitters are the ones who hog on both well enough.
2	The Abdomen Guard	Your guard is a paper towel – used around the same area to ensure that you are not mistaken for having an awry bathroom break
3	Taking stance to observe the field	Doing a quick survey of what food is present in the buffet so you can plan accordingly
4	The cautious opening to not lose your wicket	Ensuring you don’t eat only the starters and fill your stomach
5	Running the quick singles but saving energy with boundaries	Taking quick trips to take any good item twice but stocking up on two big plates so you don’t have to leave your seat often
6	Placing in the gaps for maximum benefit	Ensuring the correct distribution of food in the stomach so it can take in more
7	The bonus free hit	The complimentary mock-tail that is thrown in sometimes
8	The slog overs before the innings-end	The dessert round where you go for the kill because the buffet is going to end
9	The commentators. And the general public	The been-there-done-that folks who have already visited the restaurant passing expert comments on the food! And those ala-carte folks who are sitting around you passing comments on your eating capacity.
10	The umpire who finally gives you out	The waiter who gives you the bad news in the form of the bill

Any more similarities, please ensure you update them in the comments section...

The 10 types of people attending a lecture

In any lecture or speech or workshop, you can typically identify 10 types of people who are attending it (other than the speaker himself / herself). Check out which of the following you fall under -

1. The organizer - He is the one who introduces the speaker. And of course gives the vote of thanks, which however different or humorous he tries to make it, always consists of the same words. All eyes are usually turned on him when he announces where the snacks / lunch would be served.
2. The sleeper - Afternoons (and many times, mornings) evoke a special kind of reaction from him. One moment, he would have been the most vocal guy. But two minutes later, he would just doze off with an appreciative nod. Advanced sleepers also take a pen and act as if they are writing while busy engaging in playing mind games inside Level 3 of Inception.
3. The foodie - He comes to these workshops to hog on the nice cookies, the coke (and / or diet coke) cans, the Bisleri water bottles, and the special lunches. The organizer does not have to worry about food being wasted since the foodie usually compensates for up to 3 absentees. Taking more desserts than allocated is his USP!
4. The silent nodder - The very serious looking guys for whom a smile is worth more than their life... They intersperse their boring existence with appreciative nods towards only the speaker. You could be pardoned in thinking they ignore everyone else.
5. The class participation (CP) expert - All pent-up words come out of their mouth when they enter the lecture / workshop room. They touch upon history, geography, biology and mathematics before they come to their actual point.
6. The dumb question irritator - A special version of the CP guy is the one who only asks questions to which everyone including his grandma know the answer to. These questions are deliberately planted so that the speaker reduces his / her charge for the workshop given the company has to make do with such low IQ levels.
7. The good point accumulator - Another variation of the CP expert is the one who gets silly pleasures in being applauded on another 'good point' by the speaker. They keep count of how many times their points have been validated as 'good' by the speaker and put the number on their resume.
8. The laptop exhibitor - This guy has a perennial appointment with Microsoft Outlook during the course of the workshop. It is another matter that he is looking at interesting forwards from friends than any office mail.
9. The phone-call attender - Even if he usually gets only 1 call every week, his phone never stops ringing just during the duration of the speech / workshop. The ring-tones start with a loud one, then change to a Nokia / Blackberry default tune and end on an irritating vibration note. On an average, they do about 10 trips out of the room though hidden cameras point to 6 of them being toilet visits.
10. The cross-talker - They like laughing, poking, hair-pulling, farting, and general chit chat, specially when the speaker is in the middle of something important. As soon as the primary job of distracting the audience and the speaker is accomplished, they immediately become the most attentive listeners.
    

Am sure all of us hop into one or more of the above over time :) Any more, kindly add in the comments...

(P.S: For simplicity sake, have used a 'he' in all places, also applies equally well for a 'she')

Then versus Now - The top 10 differences

1. Something plugged into your ears indicated you were deaf, not listening to an mp3 player
2. 'Social network' meant something to do with USSR, India's biggest ally
3. You needed advanced computer skills to transfer a file > 1.44 MB
4. 'Gay' was just a simple synonym of happy
   
5. Using the phone would utmost cause blisters, not cancer due to hidden rays
   
6. 'Channel 2' or 'Second channel' always implied only one thing
7. Colored-clothing cricket indicated a major world cricket tournament, not Ind vs. SL again
   
8. Kissing a girl on the February 14th got the same tight slap
   
9. If you had a Maruti car, you were 'different' from those that had Fiat or Ambassador
   
10. Work from home meant you were out of a job...

Any other ones, please post them in the comments section...

10 types of lunch-eaters at your office canteen

Whenever you walk into your office canteen, you are faced with hundreds of people eating away to glory. If you notice carefully, these people usually fall into 10 different buckets that are described as follows -

1. The solitary man: He has a very serious expression on his face. Or is mostly expression-less. The food is either very little - so he can finish fast and get the hell out of the lonely place. Or is a lot, and that is precisely the reason why he is sitting alone, so others don't make fun of him.
   
2. The 'different' folks: They are the ones who do two or three rounds of the regular canteen. And then go order a sandwich in the side shop since they don't seem to like any food. It is usually the necessity to be high on the 'being different' coefficient that makes them pay half their salary on outside-canteen food.
3. The giggly girls: You feel that this gang is laughing about anyone and everyone that goes past them. In reality, they just have a disease. To keep giggling at everything. And make loud noises to announce their presence to the entire canteen.
4. The bosses: Bosses are of two types, ones that sit far away from anyone except their peers and discuss global company strategy or the state of the Indian economy. The other type is of course the ones who utilize lunch as an opportunity to socialize with their next rung, only the next rung utilize it as a chance to put in class-participation and pain the hell out of everyone else in the table.
5. The dabba-walas: These are the home-food specialists for whom canteen food spells doom, or they have a spouse who forces them to take the home food. The dabba-wala folks follow a pre-defined process which consists of 4 steps -(i) Heat up the food in the micro-wave (ii) Utilize the plate from the office canteen (iii) Pick out the choice delicacies from the canteen food to go with their own house food (iv) Sit down like true kings who have the best of both worlds and hog away.
   
6. The dieters: These are the people where the empty area on the plate shines from afar. The quantity of food taken puts baby food to shame. Reasons include hidden lumps of junk food in their cupboards, failure to understand a concept called 'exercise' or the long length of the weight-reduction prescriptions prescribed by the doctor.
7. The treat-givers: This is the noisy gang that has ordered pizzas from Dominos as a treat for someone leaving the company! (enjoyment for the person surely) The ratio of veg to non-veg is always a point debated for close to an hour. Finally when the pizza lands, everyone wants to dig their hands into as many different boxes as possible. They never realize that the pizza folks have fooled them into believing they are different pizzas by altering the amount of the same toppings.
8. The silent couple: This can be a newly formed romantic pair or a husband-wife combo that has been working in the company for dogs' years. 'Silence is golden' is a rule that is tried and tested. Since they have too much to talk back home or over the phone, they hardly make anything other than gestures during lunch time.
9. The intellectual marathon: Heated conversations happen in a few tables. This heated conversation can be about a game of sport or about who will be the new boss. Opinions and counter-opinions are exchanged in the middle of gulping down parathas or curd rice. The ones that are most vocal are usually the least knowledgeable (applies in generic circumstances too)
   
10. The big gang: This gang roams around the entire office, always sticking it up for one another. The 'gang' laughs together, cries together, takes food together, washes together (their hands) and makes a hell lot of noise together. The gang usually has more girls than guys. The gang's loud-mouths sit at the extremes of the table so that everyone else can hear them talk. The gang is usually made up of a mix of all of the above types of people...

Any other types you have encountered, please add them to the comments section...

Top 10 Hollywood Plot Generators

If you thought that Bollywood movies have become formula-based, re-think! Every Hollywood action / disaster movie has become completely predictable as well. If you take the 2009 hit movie ‘2012’ or ‘Avatar’ (the 2D Version), there is not much that has changed with respect to the likes of ‘Independence Day’ that came out in 1996.

The idea is to put in a mix of standard plot items and make a movie and earn billions out of it… In the end the viewer has a satisfied look of watching yet-another ‘greatest’ action movie of all time. Here is a list of the top 10 plot items that are typically used…

1. The bomb that looks like a lego toy: The villains will make a bomb, typically nuclear, sometimes chemical or biological or maybe in the future, social! The bomb always looks like a mechanical engineering college project gone wrong. One such device used in New York or San Francisco, could blow up the whole world, such is the power of the device. A sample bomb usually goes off in a smaller city (where the building blowing to smithereens effect will be copy-pasted for the millionth time) so that the users get an idea of what might happen to a big city. There is usually a time period of 24 hours up to a week before which the device has to be de-activated else the world will end, and you probably would not have been able to catch this movie!


2. The over-powering rude boss: The good guys will always have an overpowering boss who takes his own stand at all times and pains the hell out of the hero and his team that is trying to save the world. There will be at least 2 – 3 examples shown of how the overpowering boss is mean to the team, so you are left with no sympathy when he is finally either killed or shown as a complete moron.


3. The magic screen: A huge screen with numbers and letters and complex symbols floating around is used to show not just where the hero and the villain are, but probably assemble the entire Wikipedia! What it probably actually displays is the dialogue that needs to be said during the scene, but the special-FX folks super-impose so many graphical images that it all looks very sophisticated to the viewer. Sometime during the movie, the screen goes blank since a bomb exploded and they are all left wondering what happened to the hero. This continues until the final scene when the radar is able to again pick up the signal to tell everyone that all is well.


4. The apprentice: One fresher has to be the guy with the remarkable suggestions and always interject the experienced 60-something men in uniform or have an outstanding idea that needs to be tried out. This apprentice will have a youthful face, and try to act very apologetic for whatever he says, at the same time telling everyone that if they didn't follow his advice, the world will explode. The hero knows that listening to him will make a lot of sense, because the apprentice either knows the plot first-hand or is the director’s son, destined to be a hero in the next movie. Of late, this apprentice is being replaced by an Indian-origin scientist.


5. The CIA or FBI bad guys (or jokers): Mid-way, the CII or the FBI will come and try to takeover the case. One black and one white guy always form the crack-team that has been advised to look into the matter since whatever the hero is doing is apparently not working. They pain the hero to no end and act very demanding and interject anything and everything that the hero does. Finally they make a complete fool of themselves by getting mercilessly killed.


6. The random motion of helicopters and cars: Helicopters just cannot fly straight or normal. Cars need to show off their flying skills and their ability to drive in water, air and fire. The cameras provide a card-swiping effect on how the helicopters fly or the cars zoom past. This peculiar motion was accidentally first captured when the car or the helicopter was going kaput or the driver was drunk, but since the viewer enjoyed it, the directors have chosen to continue with it.


7. The over-acting coordinator: One over-acting coordinator does the fast talking to the people in the control room. He needs to move his body parts at rocket-speed and talk as if there was a gun to his head. Complete over-acting usually ends with a strong and involved dialogue saying ‘Yes, we did it’ with a totally surprised look at the end of the movie. The others in the control room can heave a sigh of relief when this happens, more at having to no longer take his overacting, than anything else.


8. The double-crosser: A mole always does a double-cross or a triple-cross at the time when the director thinks you are least expecting, but usually when the intelligent user can predict the easiest. This turning point is put in to show extra value to the ticket money that you have paid, and to add a few extra chase sequences.


9. The animal that gets saved in the nick of time: A dog or a cat (or sometimes a child as has been seen recently) is always saved in the nick of time. The said being brilliantly jumps just when the fire or the lava or the water is about to engulf the remaining part of the terrain. This save sometimes happens at the expense of some 100k humans or an entire city.


10. The almost-sex scene with the side-kick heroine: Mid-way in the movie, the hero and the heroine are close to showering their feelings on each other so as to introduce some passion to keep the viewer interested, but they decide that it would look lame and stupid to indulge in an act of pleasure in the middle of the world coming to an end. You might however think that this gives all the more reason to indulge in the act in case they don’t survive! The scene unfortunately never happens and culminates in a simple kiss when the movie ends happily for everyone.

Any plot generator items that you think, please add to the comments section…Whatever said and done, we love watching these movies. We shall certainly go to the next one as well…

(P.S: Images all got using web search, thanks to the original sources. Since I am using only the thumbnail to indicate what movie it is from, I have not put effort linking out to the original ones. You should know which movie each item stands for by now!)

Daily visit to the toilet versus a trip on a bus

It is remarkable to realize how many similarities our daily visit to the toilet has w.r.t. a trip in a public bus. Having said that, there are also a few things that you need to watch out for to ensure you don’t end up in a soup…

5 things that are SIMILAR

1. You certainly prefer a vacant seat in both - in fact, you compulsorily need a vacant one in a loo!
2. You are elated if the same one that you use always is vacant – after all, ‘familiarity breeds comfort’.
3. A corner spot is the most preferred, you don’t want to feel squeezed between two other folks!
4. You have good use of the paper in both cases – albeit newspaper in one, and tissue paper in the other.
5. You almost certainly have something funny to read, including instructions such as ‘Do Not wet Tissue Paper’ or ‘Julie loves Peter and f%#@% someone else’ etc.
   

5 things that are DIFFERENT

1. You would want to stay away from the bus if you have ‘motion’ sickness, while you cannot afford to stay away from a toilet then.
2. You do not want a loo seat with a window view, at least others prefer not to see you!
3. It is OK if you use a lady’s seat in a bus that is empty, a similar case in a toilet might lead to permanent mental and physical scarring.
4. You don’t want to be woken up by the cleaners, saying you missed your stop and it is time for them to do their work.
5. The conductor can afford to kick you out in the middle if you didn’t pay, but no-one wants to have that choice in a toilet.

Any more such in(s)ane observations about this clash of public versus pubic, please mark them out in the comments section!

Top 10 unwanted exercises when having food

Eating food is part of our daily life. However, there are various interruptions and physical activities that annoy us at different points in time while performing this important activity. The following list contains the top 10 pain points* in my list, and proposed mitigation strategies to overcome them...

1. When: During any buffet
   What: Standing in a line for food + Walking and eating + Sheepish grin to the server for second helping
   Mitigation: Wear a shirt with enough pockets for storage, so you can go hide the food and go home and conveniently have it in your plate
2. When: Washing your hands using a finger bowl
   What: Water is just not enough and you can't use it after 2 seconds once dirt mixes with it
   Mitigation: When no one is watching, pour drinking water on your hand into the finger bowl; In case of a Chinese restaurant, you can utilize warm Chinese tea as an alternate to ice cold water
3. When: Badly made 'bakshanam' (thats Tamil for oily snacks / sweets!)
   What: Chance of losing a few of your remaining teeth
   Mitigation: Utilize a road roller** that might be near your house / grinder inside house to have a liquefied / powdered snack
4. When: Eating curd / rasam rice from a banana leaf (in South Indian marriages)
   What: The buttermilk / rasam generally has a liking for flowing out of the leaf on to your lap
   Mitigation: Befriend the cook and get a small plate to have 'liquidy' items (also utilized by Maamis for stealing the extra payasam or sweet for their beloved sons)
5. When: When you are stuffed to the brim by your in-laws
   What: Showing you have not wasted too much food
   Mitigation: Disperse the wasted food across the entire plate / neighbour's plate (obviously, when they are not looking at it)
6. When: Separate coffee, milk and sugar, served in aircrafts and five star hotels
   What: Any mix of the above always ends in a crappy product to drink
   Mitigation: Have tea or better, alcohol!
   
7. When: Chapathi / Roti
   What: Tearing out a small piece, one after the other
   Mitigation: Tell spouse that it is very romantic if he / she does the tearing and feeds you (in Tamil, called 'ooti-vittifying')
   
8. When: Food is too hot
   What: The 'oof - oof' blowing to remove the vapors and the endless wait thereafter
   Mitigation: 1 minute in the freezer
9. When: Pizza with fork and knife
   What: That feeling of a wood-cutter working hard, with sweat all over.
   Mitigation: The hand of God!, rather use your own hands
   
10. When: Spreading hard jam or butter on bread
    What: You end up cutting the bread or breaking it rather than spreading the jam or butter
    Mitigation: Adopt the idli - chutney mode of taking a piece of idly and mixing it with chutney / sambhar and having, where bread = idly and jam / butter = chutney (fall back option for #7 above in case you are pained with that as well)
    

Any more, please add them in the comments section along with the mitigation strategy...

* All in jest, so don't take any comment personally against your region's food
** Adopted from Koundamani suggestion in the movie Yejaman (Tamil)

The top 10 characteristic cricket shots – and how the balls feel!

Whenever our favorite cricketer hits his characteristic shot, we are all elated. But have we for once thought about the cricket ball. And what the cricket ball feels about the whole episode? The ball has its purpose in life – to go hit the stumps of the batsman. When it is not able to do that, it feels best if it is well left and goes inside the cozy comforts of the wicketkeeper’s gloves. Instead, when it gets a pounding as it does from some of the world-class batsman, it feels like being kicked out or hit hard.

With this in perspective, let us analyze some of the most characteristic shots in modern day cricket, and how this equates to anywhere from a polite send-off to a rude dumping for the cricket ball.

• Cricketer: Thilakaratne Dilshan
  Shot: Bend and send the ball back over the head of the wicketkeeper for four and completely change the trajectory of the ball
  Feeling: You are dressed handsomely. You have a fine accent. You know you can talk you way to the American visa for which you have come all the way from Bangalore to Chennai. And you believe you have all the documents that are required. The visa officer talks very nicely to you. Except that he feels that your personality might pose a bigger threat to the USA than 10 Osamas put together. And to put you off in a completely different direction, he asks you for a document that he knows you would have probably used as a tissue paper substitute some time in your life. You are sent back to Bangalore with the next appointment a month away.
  

• Cricketer: Chris Gayle
  Shot: Spread out legs (pun intended) and dispatch out of the stadium over long on or mid-wicket with a big heave of the bat
  Feeling: You hit upon a girl in a pub. She was speaking nicely to you. You thought this was your chance. You decided to go in for the kill and ask her out on a date. ‘Pat’ comes the reply in the form of a tight slap. The last you remembered before you awoke at the hospital - some big fat guys were lifting you up.

• Cricketer: Gautam Gambhir
  Shot: A constipated bend and nudge towards third man presumably for a clever four but ends up usually in a dumb single
  Feeling: You have decided to land up on Saravana Stores to buy a shirt. All you know is that you entered the shop sometime back. The crowd pushed and shoved you towards some person who was showing shirts. Without any signaling or pointing, a cloth piece was packed. Again as you stood wondering what just happened, you are pushed towards the billing counter. When you took the kerchief out to swipe off your sweat, the purse came along with it. With the bill and the apparel in hand, you are now standing outside the shop still wondering what just happened. When you open the box, you realize you have a saree instead of a shirt.

• Cricketer: Ross Taylor
  Shot: Moving across the stumps to offer an LBW chance but heaving the bat quickly to send the ball from outside the off-stump to out of the stadium on the leg side
  Feeling: You had the right focus. You had prepared well. You had beaten the others to it. You got your dream Day 0 job. Until the week after when the global stock markets crash. And the company plunges into recession. And they say that your appointment is deferred by 6 months. And of course, you have the choice of finding a job elsewhere since 6 could extend to 12 as well.
  

• Cricketer: Yuvraj Singh
  Shot: The complete kneel down on one foot as if to show respect and then launch a massive six over mid-wicket
  Feeling: – You go into the marriage reception to greet a couple you hardly know. You are there because it is a ritual and someone asked you to come along. The couple is already tired of smiling for the last couple of hours. But however, you know you are in the public eye. The couple greets you with all the respect that you can ever get from unknown persons. And asks you to go and eat your food. At the back of their mind, they would be happy with one more good riddance. At the back of your mind, you know you are happy to get into the food hall. But unfortunately for you, there is such a long waiting line and at the end of the waiting, the food was so bad that it has started making sounds in your tummy. You now want to exit the place and attend nature’s dual call. But there is a long queue there as well…
  

The other top 10 characteristic shorts – you can contribute how the balls feel during these...

• Mahendra Singh Dhoni – The small spread of the legs to hit a straight drive that sizzles past the bowler
• Virender Sehwag - Extremely powerful cover drive on the off-side where point and cover are still looking at the batsman while the ball has sailed past the cover boundary for a six
• Sachin Tendulkar – The paddle sweep invented to counter Shane Warne’s spin during the test series in India
• Ricky Ponting - The front-foot movement, short bend and majestic pull over square leg with super-fast hand-eye coordination
• Kevin Pieterson: The elaborate movement across the stumps and a glance to send the ball from outside off to across the leg side mid-wicket region for a boundary
  

Happy 60th Birthday Rajinikanth

Rajini the Thalaiver,
Stylish and clever,
At any age, you tire never,
Happy birthday, forever...

In honor of a special 60th birthday, here are the Top 5 lists of various types of movies of Thalaiver. The same is available here on Twitter.

• Top 5 Rajini Style / All-time Best Movies - (1) Baasha (2) Padayappa (3) Shivaji (4) Muthu + Moondru Mugam (5) Thalapathi (#) Other Mentions - Annamalai, Mannan
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Acting Movies - (1) Thalapathi (2) Netri Kann (3) Engeyo Ketta Kural (4) Gayathri (5) Raghavendra (#) Other Mentions - Bhairavi, Peddarayudu (Telugu), Bhuvana Oru Kelvikuri, Thappu Thalangal
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Comedy Movies - (1) Thillu Mullu (2) Guru Sishyan (3) Mannan (4) Velaikkaaran (5) Arunachalam (#) Other Mentions - Maappillai
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Senti Roles - (1) Engeyo Ketta Kural (2) Naan Adimai Illai (3) Yejaman (4) Dharmadurai (5) Anbullah Rajinikanth (#) Other Mentions - Gaayathri
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Action Movies (1) Thalapathi (2) Naan Sigappu Manithan (3) Murattukalai (4) Siva (5) Kodi Parakkudhu (#) Other Mentions - Pokkiri Raja
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Music Movies - (1) Johny (2) Ninaithaale Inikkum (3) Baasha (4) Muthu (5) Thalapathi (#) Other Mentions - Rajathi Raja, Uzhaippali
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Thinking Movies (1) Chandramukhi (2) Netrikann (3) Priya (4) Naan Sigappu Manithan (5) Annamalai (#) Other Mentions - Mr. Bharath
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Romance Movies (1) Pudukavidhai (2) Veera (3) Thambikku Endha Ooru (4) Yejaman (5) Velaikkaran (#) Other Mentions - Gayathri
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Negative Roles - (1) 16 Vayathinile (2) Moondru Mudichu (3) Thappu Thalangal (4) Apoorva Ragangal (5) Polladhavan
  
  
• Top 5 Rajini Duds :( (1) Baba (2) Bloodstone (3) Valli (4) Kuselan + Pandiyan (5) ALL HINDI (#) Other Mentions - Adhisaya Piravi, Kodi Parakkudhu, Maaveeran

Any more list ideas or any more additions to existing lists, please do add...

The REAL top 10 search trends...

Over the last week, there have been various top search engines that have been publishing the list of top 10 search queries for 2009. One could go a step further and assume that the following would be the trends for celebrities and common people alike across various fields such as sports, entertainment, media etc.

• User-base: Government Officials (Category: Politics)
  Popular Queries
  i) How should I live in austerity
  ii) How to evade questions on peace with Pakistan

• User-base: American policy-makers/ Peace-makers (Category: World)
  Popular Queries
  i) What strategies to follow to continue attacking Afghanistan, Iraq
  ii) What reasons to provide for giving Obama the Nobel prize
  

• User-base: Top movie producers / TV serial-makers (Category: Entertainment)
  Popular Queries
  i) How to deliver a hit in Bollywood
  ii) How to convert Rakhi Sawant to marriage material
  

• User-base: Indian Cricket Team / Golfers (Category: Sports)
  Popular Queries
  i) Which companies are available for selling myself to
  ii) What not to do with a golf club
  

• User-base: Tech-savvy consumers (Category: Technology)
  Popular Queries
  i) What to do with Google Wave
  ii) How not to tweet like Sashi Tharoor
  

• User-base: Writers / Musicians (Category: Literary / Arts)
  Popular Queries
  i) How to write books for Rs.95 and still make millions like Chetan Bhagat
  ii) How to pass an opinion on everything like Arundathi Roy
  

• User-base: Journalists / TV Reporters (Category: Media / Journalism)
  Popular Queries
  i) How to pick a story to sensationalize
  ii) How to shout like Rajdeep Sardesai
  

• User-base: Working professionals (Category: Corporate India)
  Popular Queries
  i) How to act busy at work so that I don’t get fired during recession
  ii) How to steal free food at office to increase savings
  

• User-base: Young Indians (Category: Lifestyle)
  Popular Queries
  i) How to earn and eat, and spend the same on gyms before marriage
  ii) How to put on weight after marriage
  

• User-base: The Common Man (Category: General)
  Popular Queries
  i) How to ignore everything around just enough for living my own life
  ii) How to vote without any choice
  

P.S: Last heard, none of the search engines could give a valid answer for most of the questions across the spectrum. The said parties were interested in any answers humans might have…

P.S 2: This post links to a lot of older posts. Foresight maybe... :)

Any more for any of the above categories or any other category of users, please add on in the comments section…

Top 10 Doordarshan TV moments from back then...

In honor of the twitter trend #youremember here is a list of the top 10 Videos (thanks to Youtube) of the yesteryears. Each of these videos signifies something special... Something that a lot of Indians of that generation could relate to... Something that a lot of us could enjoy, whenever we saw them since there was not much choice of channel or content. Here's to reliving those days...

1. Mile Sur Mera Tumhara - This one needs no introduction. When the torch gets passed from cricket player to cinema star to everyone else across the spectrum, and finally when the tricolor comes on screen with the fantastic musical score in the background, there are certain goosebumps any living Indian would get. (And here is a post on what if Mile Sur Mera Tumhara was redone today)
   
2. Jungle Book Title Song - The jungle boy jumping around with his animals with a nice kid singing in the background was one of the earliest cartoons that came on our TV screens.
   
3. Ek Chidiya - A simple concept of unity in diversity, explained by a brother sister animated combo with a fantastic tune.
4. Hamara Bajaj - This was just an ad. But it was for the Bajaj scooter, which was part and parcel of Indians' live. The 'Hamara Bajaj' background score indicated something more, something special that gave the feeling of national pride.
   
5. Doordarshan Montage - The first sign of the day's TV starting, and a sign of it ending. The iconic music is etched in our memories, thanks to the many movies that symbolically indicate the day's start using this one tune.
6. Heman / Spiderman - TV was our biggest friend, far ahead of books. And Heman raising his sword to the sky and the 'friendly neighbourhood Spiderman' going across from building to building to the two distinctive background scores were guys' favorite shows at that time. In the era of cable TV, WWF wrestling came to serve guys' needs better!
7. Didi's Comedy Show - Nonstop nonsense was what the title said. And it was true to that. And it made you laugh like hell. If there was one guy, who could make you laugh without any words said, it was this German guy. He never spoke. And his actions were terribly funny. The ending bit of the show where there is a phase-lagged 4 screens on your screen at the same time are just about awesome!
   
8. Superhit Muqabla (could not find a video) - Though Oliyum Oliyum in its Tamil avatar and Chitrahaar in its Hindi avatar served us for many years, Superhit Muqabla was something special. There was the twist of a countdown, a model for a veejay and the latest songs from the latest films. And of course, it was on the special channel - DD2!
9. Mahabhaarat - Everyone knew the story, but one set of arrows fighting another formed spectacular graphics at that stage, enough to make everyone glued to their TV screens. And the start of the epic show was the title track which got translated into multiple languages as well along with the show itself.
   
10. The World this Week (jump to after the first minute in video) - When a young half-bald Prannoy Roy came on the screen and showed us bits and pieces of bombings across the world or Australian cricket with stump cameras and floodlights and colored clothing, people were amazed and wanted to watch the half hour show though it was only once a week and at a really late hour.

If you know of any other videos, please do include those in the comments section.

P.S: I have not directly embedded the videos since that would have made the page terribly long...

If 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' were remade today...

Mile Sur Mera Tumhara - This is a song from the 80s Doordarshan that no one from our generation would forget. But to make it relevant to the current school-going generation, there may have to be some changes done to the song. And some things, that just should not change even today. And certainly, there might be some surprise elements too…

5 things that would change

• The song would start with a white and white clad A R Rahman with long tresses and waving hands
• Instead of people ploughing their land or going in tractors, people coding in software companies and watching a rocket take off from Sriharikota would be highlighted
• The Delhi Metro, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir would replace the Calcutta underground and its host of personalities
• The next generation of Hindi cinema would take over from their parents or predecessors – the 3 Khans instead of the Amitabh / Mithun / Jeetendra trio, Deepika instead of Prakash Padukone, Kajol instead of Tanuja, and so on.
• The waving well-lit cell-phone with different color displays would replace the people running in at the end of the song to form our flag
  

5 things that would NOT change

• Bollywood and cricket would forever be the passions of our country and act as the anchors for the song
• The Taj Mahal, Goa beach, Dal Lake, Punjab greens, Thar Desert, The Indian Railways, Elephants in Kerala etc. would continue as the icons of India
• The traditional serene village lands and people of the North east have hardly changed
• Kamalhassan, Amitabh Bhachan, etc. may be old but are still gold and would appear in the song even today
• Lata Mangeshkar would still sing the song
  

5 things that one would NOT be surprised if were introduced

• One representative from every political party would find a place in the song, with a specially constructed statue of Mayawati at the start of the song
• Microsoft & Google chiefs and Barack Obama would do a round of thanks to India for offering to be the source of their company’s and country’s brains
• A rich suit-clad man and a beggar look at the Bombay Stock Exchange longingly
• The attire of the stars in the song would use lesser cloth and more skin show than the traditional saree of yesteryears
• Raakhi Sawant and to-be-husband from the reality show as well as a host of dancing, singing, and doing-anything for fame folks from all the junk reality shows make an appearance in the song
  

And before signing off, the original song itself...

Tam Brahms: We are like this wonly - Mind It!

Times are changing. And so is the Tam Brahm race. As the world graduates to Facebook and online dating, Obama and soccer, we are also changing.

At least on the face of it!

Inherently, we won’t! And we can’t… The top 5 indications for this follow…

1. Façade: We have started naming our kids Amit / Abhishek trying to make their names look more cosmopolitan.
   Fact: For every 1 Amit, there are still 99 names with a Balaji or a Sriram or a Subramaniam (with variations of n or m to end the word!) or Vidya or Ramya…
   
   
2. Façade: We love eating pizzas and butter naans, albeit in Saravana Bhavan!
   Fact: That, and we also still love our puliyodharai from Parthasarathy Swamy Temple, specially standing twice in the queue with a changed outfit to fool the distribution point of contact, or the curd rice from Anjaneya temple (we can bring the aavakkai pickle in our pocket)
   
   
3. Façade: We always seem to determine the raga behind any song, including a Led Zeppelin hard rock number.
   Fact: We feign knowledge of Carnatic music while all we have ever learnt is Violin or Mrudangam during a compulsory 40 minutes-per-week art education class till the 7th Std. in school!
   
   
4. Façade: We have our representations in varied industries including cinema, music, literature, sport etc.
   Fact: We still swear and die by an IIT or BITS engineering degree and an MS from the US! It is another thing that we drop all of it to get into some software job or an MBA!
   
   
5. Façade: We network actively through Orkut and Facebook and find matches through online dating.
   Fact: A lot of the match making happens courtesy our friendly neighbourhood mama and mami in house functions and temple visits! And the groom typically works in the US or has some connection with IT!
   

Any more, feel free to add to the comments...