Top 10 indications of the recession in your office

1. Your office toilet has extremely thin or hardly any tissue paper.
   
2. On your salary slip, the denomination is in “Paise”. And just to keep you in check now and then, the salary slip is pink in color.
   
3. People start disappearing from your office and you are told that they have taken a long sabbatical for various reasons.
4. Those remaining are asked to share seating space and computers to improve teamwork and bonding.
5. When their seating time is over, they double up as office boys and security.
6. Conference rooms are let out on rent
   
7. The smell in your office is different. It is the effect of a combo of no air-conditioning, absence of air-spray in the office and absence of deo sprays at your colleagues’ homes.
   
8. Food items in the canteen are served in ice-cream bowls, coffee is limited to 1 per person and resembles a tequila shot in size.
9. Office cabs look similar to those stunt vehicles where 20 are packed inside one Maruti car.
10. To escape the rot, you log into the top job sites and you are greeted with a perennial message “Site under maintenance”, while the business newspapers start carrying obituary and crossword puzzles instead of the jobs supplement.

Any more such signs, please feel free to add in the comments section!

Long live paunches!

It is that time of the year when everyone makes resolutions. I did too. And one of my new-year resolutions was to do away with my paunch. But coming to think of it, I am seriously reconsidering this resolution. Paunches are so in! They are a sign of prosperity, of holistic and well-rounded development in all spheres of life.

Here are 10 reasons why I think they are a man’s best friend…

1. My paunch is the first thing that I see on waking up, without having to move a muscle. Lying down, you open your eyes and there it is - like a mountain behind which the sun rises. The last thing you probably see before you sleep is also the same paunch.
2. It makes traveling in crowded buses much easier. Standing on your two feet, you can do a circular movement like that of a pencil on a drawing compass. You clear away all the people who are cramming you for space. And thus, have all the place to yourself…
3. The paunch acts as a good sensing device since it goes to all places well before you yourself do. With time, you can understand its sensing power and evade those people that you may not want to meet.
4. Big paunches are generally accompanied by reasonably big rear sides as well. However, since the paunch greets people first, it takes away their focus completely. Jokes on your front are typically more appreciated than those behind your back! (pun intended)
5. You can stuff a lot of items into your paunch for meetings without people doubting that you have done so. That chips packet, that gaming device, the music player, the small chess-board etc. that you always wanted to carry into the meeting room to keep you occupied are well within your grasp. People cannot notice a 2” difference in a 48” waist. They can, on a 32” one.
6. It acts as an adjustable pillow for your wife. Olden-days romance involved the spouse lying down on the husband’s thigh and singing a song. New-age romance calls for the husband’s paunch to be the adjustable pillow for the wife to have a comforting nap.
7. When it gets too boring, the paunch acts as your complete gaming device. You can place small objects from spinning tops to marbles and coins and watch their Brownian motion by altering the contours of your paunch. If not guided well, some may come and hit you on your face. Others may go hit you on other parts below…
8. The paunch is a great percussion instrument for an orchestra. The bigger it is, the better the sounds that it emanates on tapping it at its various locations. There are some paunches that can generate even more variations than a ghatam or a tabla!
9. Mosquitoes get completely fooled. They think that they can attack you but the multiple layers of padding make it far tougher for them to penetrate through. In desperation, they typically fly away for leaner and greener pastures!
10. Last but not the least, if you are ever in a soup with the traffic police or the police, you can escape scot-free. They would consider you one of their kind. The paunch is the great unifying factor. So you can rest easy in life.

More instances where the paunch acts as a great friend for mankind are appreciated in the comments section of this post!

(Disclaimer: It may not be in the best interests of your health unfortunately :( )

a very happy 2009

another year went past really fast,
some events aghast while some do well to last.
mumbai attack pix terror and daily life mix.
lehman goes for a six congress left in a fix.
kumble and ganguly down dhoni got the crown,
obama made america his own india got the ifone.
lets forget the old wine, let the new year shine
to you and your family all things fine, a very happy 2009!

Thank you Anil Kumble...

One of the legends of the game retired today. Anil Kumble, take a bow! You truly are one of Indian cricket's gems. For the last 18 years, you have been instrumental in providing some of India's finest moments in cricket. You will certainly be missed a lot... Having watched you for a good part of the last two decades, I just thought I should thank you in the only way I could think of - on my blog! And not without reason...

• You made millions of Indians get back the faith that their team could win. Right from the time the demoralized team came back home in 1992-93' to face England, you have injected the team with the necessary confidence to win. The thumping series win against England was just the start of many series wins at home... In ODIs as well as tests...
• You were one of the key reasons why India became a tiger at home! Sure, the 4 batting stalwarts of India scored tons of runs. But we needed someone to take 10 wickets every inning. And 20 wickets in the match. And you sure took the first statement to heart, when you bagged all ten against Pakistan in the same venue that would become your last as well... Not one in the 10 test playing nations has been spared of your tremendous effect...
• You have infused terror in the minds of many an opponent batsman. And made them sit up and take notice of a thin tall bespectacled man who could only bowl straight balls without an iota of turn. Yes, so many were apprehensive on how long you would last with that one delivery. But you put paid to all their doubts by sending back batsmen 600 times in test cricket with literally that one single type of ball...
• Your amazing energy to bowl at the stumps even in your fiftieth over in the inning is just awesome - as Steve Waugh once famously said, the batsman can never rest when you are bowling to them because they know if they miss, you hit the stump or the pad...We sure knew we could expect you to always be tight and bowl a deadly line and length at any point in the match.
• Your child-like glee when you get someone out with your rare googly, or when you specially position VVS in a second wide slip for that leading edge to be caught, made the layman viewer emotionally attached to your every single move on the field.
• You gave us the lighter moments too. We know you don't like fielding as much as your bowling. (But for that matter, just one or two people in the Indian team ever took to fielding properly!) The way you dived at the ball only to let it always pass, or the way you run towards the ball only to raise your hand to warn the fielder in the deep that it is inevitably coming to him... These are mannerisms that have sure lightened our cricket watching!
• But you were a lot more adept at batting to save India the blushes quite a few times! With an exaggerated forward movement even to the fastest of bowlers... Specially when you made that fighting half century against South Africa in Eden Gardens along with Azhar, or when you stuck around with Srinath to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat against Australia in the tri-nation prelims, or the time you struck your first hundred against England last year... Or even the fighting 40 to take India past 600 in your last test match...
• Not resting on your laurels at home, you finally proved your detractors wrong by wrecking havoc overseas as well. You were instrumental in our away wins too, and thus kicked all your detractors in the butt! Though Dravid did get the most of the honours for the wins deservedly, somewhere unsung were your contributions to that series win in Windies, or the great Adelaide win in Australia or even the last test series win in England.
• Your passion for cricket, and your unflinching resolve to try and take wickets probably of every ball. More importantly, every time you had the ball in your hand, you made India believe you could get a wicket, no matter what the match situation was... Or who the batsman was... Just that impending feeling of the opponents getting out caught to Dravid at silly point or getting plumb in front or seeing their middle stump knocked off, gave sheer delight to the millions of Indian cricket fans...
• Your never say die spirit needs to be embodied in every single Indian cricketer. With a bandaged jaw, you came back and took Brian Lara's wicket in a test at West Indies. And even in the last test match, with 11 stitches on your left hand and visible pain on your face, you ran back all the way to take a fantastic catch to dismiss the last man... These are qualities that Indians don't normally see even in the other great cricketers of this era who prefer to sit inside the dressing room with the slightest of injuries.
• Above all, you have been a gentleman in this era of the over-the-top Harbhajans and the perennially vocal Australians. A gentleman, and a thorough professional. Be it when you were a player, or when you were the captain. And the game of cricket needed people like you to balance out the ruffians in the game...

Hats off to you Kumble, please do take a well deserved rest now. And let all of us hope the next generation of spinners has at least one of your kind... Some day maybe...

Rock on is classy...

Last evening, I had a chance to rock on. I have tried to provide an "unbiased" view of the movie! Rest is left to your choice...

Five reasons why you should watch the movie...

1. It depicts life realistically - {WARNING: Too many life fundas to follow} All things do not have fairy tale endings. Everyone houses an element of nostalgia in a corner of their minds, which they either keep thinking about or consciously do not want to be reminded of. People have various dreams but a majority of them fine-tune themselves to reality and customize their life and work with the opportunities around them. Life does sometimes give a feeble second chance, it is left to the individuals to seize the opportunity. There are impulse decisions that people take, which the individual's ego would never agree is wrong, but over time, some just get over it. And as the various characters in the movie keep saying every now and then, "Everyone compromises on something or the other"
2. The class and the consistency is amazing- There are various aspects of a typical movie that keep fluctuating over time as the movie progresses, and you start wondering whether something changed in terms of the people involved in making the movie. For once, you just feel that you actually watched one whole coherent movie. You may think its a bit slow. You may think that the colors are a bit rustic. You may feel that the dialogues are short. You may think there are not much expressions from anyone. You may even feel its very predictable. And still you are completely OK with all of it. Because it actually feels like one whole movie. And you really want more of the movie. You want to see the actors reunite. You want to hear the songs. You are so much part of it. For once, you dont care about anything else that belongs to the glossier aspects of film making. And you just feel at the end of it, there should be more such classy Indian movies made.
3. A casting coup - There is not a film in recent times where the characters fitted their roles so well. Be it the 4 leading gents, or the ladies, a lot of thought has been given in finding the artists that would bring out the emotions in tune with the overall feel of the movie, yet would not give you the feeling that someone overacted or underplayed their roles. And the camera has captured their moods and their characters excellently. The hidden emotions of Farhan, the miniature expressions of the soap opera star Prachi, the helplessness of Arjun Rampal, the anxiety of his wife, the lighter mood of Purab and the burning nostalgia of Luke. Each and every character has been given due importance in some form or the other. You feel that even the smallest of roles, including Jo's kid and mom, and the tea stall owner have been so well thought out.
4. 'Don't get too senti' - Just as KD tells his friends during the movie, the user also need not get too senti at any point of the movie. There is not one moment that goes over the top. There are certainly various instances along the movie where you would feel a slight lump in your throat. But the movie just moves on, without letting the characters, or the viewer get too sentimental. This way, it is so different from other Hindi movies where one of the two has to happen to engage the user.
5. The music works like magic - Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy have just eclipsed all else. Letting a new singer (Farhan) sing 5 songs may have been the biggest risk of their career, but its paid off so well. Every car and every radio channel should be soon playing Socha Hai, Sindbad the Sailor and the title track... A guy who has no clue about Rock Music as such would still be able to tap their feet to the songs. They dont even need to understand the lyrics (which should give even more fun apparently). And without hearing the songs beforehand, you would still enjoy them the very first time - thats a rare thing for any song!

Now, to complete the review, lets look at 5 reasons why you should not watch the movie...

1. You don't like to watch movies
2. You don't like to listen to good music
3. You are over the age of 80 and it becomes very difficult to follow anything that goes on around you
4. You are so damn lazy that you can't move your butt to the theatre (don't watch this one in a pirated CD, save that for the other 4 - 5 bollywood films that released y'day)
5. You are a language fanatic and cannot go and watch Bollywood movies that have English titles

I am finishing up this post with the music of the movie blasting away to glory in the background. Just to sum up, go watch the movie without thinking too much. Do the thinking after watching it...