How the water department works in Delhi?

I went to pay me water bill (it is the only one left where I still have to go, stand in a line, swear at the heat, pay 10 Rs. extra everytime hoping that not many people are interested in paying the bill after due date only to be disappointed). This is how the department works:

Step I) You give the bill along with the money to a person sitting at the counter in Window One
Step II) The person returns you the remaining cash and passes the bill to a person sitting on his right
Step III) The person on the right makes an entry in the register and passes the bill to the person on his right
Step IV) The person on the right stamps the bill and looks for a person on this right

Oops. Thank God there is no person on his right. So devoid of any choices in life, he follows the last option. He passes the stamped bill to the customer waiting on Window Two.

I think there is only one week in two months where those three persons think it is worth living a life and they want to make the most of it. Who hates attention?

Anyways, from the window outside they look like the three monkeys of "Bura mat suno, bura mat dekho, bura mat karo" fame.

He will still be an employee!

A casual discussion between friends and what better topic than the currently going on IPL. The conversation slowly went into King XI and Team Mohali and their owner Preity / Ness. The majority believed that Preity was slowly getting closer to Yuvraj (we all have opinions and what better topic to have opinions on than something which combines cricket with entertainment). With all the hugs she gives him after every match and it being highlighted in different newspapers everyday, it only made sense. And of course, Yuvraj would earn and get closer to Ness in coming years. But suddenly someone from somewhere in the coversation came out with this:

At the end of the day, he will still be an employee!

Chalo Hello Karo!

A colleague of mine has a kid around 2 and a half years old. One day after office when he reached back home, his kid was playing along with a friend in the society park. He decided to go up to take some rest. After some time, the kid came back up to the flat along with his friend. As soon as he entered the house, he told him:
Papa, yeh arshit hai. Chalo Hello Karo!

Couple or De-Couple

There have been lots of coupling and de-coupling theories doing the rounds of stock markets in India. Everyone is taking a bet on whether Indian Market is coupled or de-coupled with the US market.

My two cents on this:

If US rises, then Indian market is de-coupled and if US falls, then Indian market is coupled.

You might be tempted to call me an internal pessimist, but the past week has been like that.

Milk to the count of 10

What has the count of 1 to 10 got to do with a glass of milk? If you are somewhere around my age and without a kid (around 30s) then the answer would be impossible to find. But if you are somewhere my age and with a kid, then the answer could be more easy to fathom. One of my friends son has joined school a few days back and so now he gets up early every day to GO TO SCHOOL. My friend has been entrusted with the job of "Making him drink milk every morning". Sounds easy. For me, it does as I have no direct experience but ask my friend.

Every morning, my friend has to count from 1 to 10 and the 10 should not come before the last sip in the glass of milk is down the kids throat. Otherwise, the count begins again.

And wonder what, the kid yesterday taught his mother the count from 1 to 10. So if you believe you have learned the count from 1 to 10 early in your life, then just wait till you are the PROUD PARENT of a kid. You would definitely need to Unlearn to Learn the new count.

Can you fine-tune it before tuning it?

Consider the case where you do not know the frequency of a FM station and you need to find out. What would you do?

Step A: Do automatic tuning
Step B: Do fine tuning to get to the exact frequency

This is the most efficient way of doing it.

But what if you Skip Step A and go off to Step B straight away. In that case, you will get the results but GOD knows when.

So can you fine-tune anything even before tuning it?

My guess would be NO. But you guess it. Managers always have a new trick in their bags. He told one of my colleagues that we will fine-tune the design later. My colleagues reaction was: Boss, when did we tune it in the first place?

What is a mouse?

Couple of weeks back a new office boy has joined our office. He has come from Chennai and does not know Hindi. We have 16 people in our office right now (including two office boys) and 13 of us know Hindi, 14 of us know English. Now if we need to recruit a new office boy, what would be the requirements:

• Should be ready to do office work
• Should be ready to do misc. stuff (may or may not be part of his job profile)
• Should have a good integrity so that things are safe in the office
  
• Should be able to understand what needs to be done

But the only language our new office boy knows is Tamil which 12 people in the office do not know. I am equally amazed how he got through as some others in my office are. Maybe because he knows the language of the master. Anyways, I got a feeling of how important sign language is when early today morning a mouse came to say hello to me in the office. It scared the wits out of me. I had to explain that we have a new unwanted guest to our new office boy who was the only person around. I could not because he does not know Hindi / English and I do not know Tamil. I told him we had a mouse. He told me it is in the drawer. A little more brain tuning and I could make out he was talking about the COMPUTER MOUSE and not the MOUSE MOUSE. I tried to show him by hands that I am talking about A MOUSE WHICH WALKS. But I could not get through. I talked to him about a lion and a tiger and then suddenly RAT was the WORD OF THE DAY.

Monday morning blues

Early monday morning. Nice songs in the background. Chatting with a friend in the US. And an unwelcome guest.



Yes, this is one of the immense joys you HAVE TO enjoy in a startup (all pun intended). It suddenly jumped onto the cubicle wall, said hello to me and then in a flash I moved back and in next flash it went back to where it had come from. All pleasantries exchanged phew.....

Next began the cat and mouse game. But we were not able to house the mouse in a mouse trap. We have a new office boy and explaining whats a mouse to him was the icing on the cake.

Pehle Dharti Hili, Phir Biwi aur Finally Main

First the earth shook, then my wife and finally me. This basically summarizes my earthquake experience that hit Delhi today morning at 4:45 pm. As my cousin put it: Woh to bhabhi ne balance kar diya nahin to aaj to bas :)

My friends experience was a little different. First the earth shook, then he shook and then his wife finally had to scold him to stop shaking. Only if he had the power to shake the earth :)

Another colleague of mine who has come here from US for an year remembered the tips he was given in US in case an earthquake happens. They were requested to hide under something wooden so that nothing falls on them. Only in this case, his dining table would have been the first thing to break in case something happened.

Fifety-Nine or Unsath

A friend of mine took his dad for a heart check-up to a famous cardiologist (around 75 in age) in New Delhi. The cardiologist started asking questions to my friends dad:

Cardiologist: Whats your age?
Friends Dad: (A little confused) Fifety-Nine (a little pause) Unsath
Cardiologist: Fifety Nine Or Unsath. Bahut difference hai dono mein.
Friends Dad: (Lost in words) Fifety-Nine
Cardiologist: Do you smoke?
Friends Dad: Nahin
Cardiologist to Friends Dad: Lie down on the bed
Friend to his dad: Papa, bistar par late jaaiye
Cardiologist to Friends Dad: Remove your shirt
Friend to Cardiologist: Doctor, my dad does not know English.
Cardiologist to Friend: Mujhe pata hai. Tum chup chap kursi par jakar baith jao. Tabhi maine poocha tha Fifety-Nine yaan Unsath. He replied fifety-nine. I have been in US for seven years. No one speaks Hindi there. Aur hum yahan par bhi hindi bolne mein sharmate hain.

Duniya Gol Hai Mere Dost

Once upon a time, when we used to go to school, we used to study Geography. The name of our Geography teacher was Mrs. Purewal. She was very strict but she used to take us to wonderful places near our school so that we could learn things. Once while we were having our Geography class, she asked us to open our Atlas. She took us to the page where the map of the world was drawn (something like in the shown image). Then she decided to test us and our intelligence. She asked us to pick the shortest path through sea from Japan to the West Coast of America. Some answers:

a) Japan to India to SA to US
b) Japan to India and through the Mediterranean Sea to US




I won't mind if you cannot stop laughing reading the above answers. I also laugh at it, but it was tough to remember this simple thing back then:

Duniya Gol Hai Mere Dost

Ga Ga Ga Ga

A colleague of mine has a one and a half year daughter. As she is growing up, she is learning new things and this includes the mobile phone. She has managed to learn to play with it and accidentally dial a number using the phone. On one such occasion, she dialed the number of another colleague of mine. When he picked up the phone, he started hearing voices of a small baby going "Ga Ga Ga Ga".

Similarly my wifes sister has a one year old son. He is also enjoying the world of mobile phones and thinks about it as more of a toy than a thing used to communicate. If you put a phone on his ears and someone from the other end speaks, he would listen for a couple of seconds and then remove the mobile from his ears.

A little older kids love the ring tone of the mobile phone. They would start from the first stored ring tone and keep playing each and every one of them.

People with Time Vs People with Talent

Karwa Chauth

October 29, 2007 was the day when the moon decided to play hide and no seek with the ladies in India. Karwa Chauth is a festival in India where the married ladies keep a fast and pray for long lives of their husbands. One of the infinite reasons why I love my wife :)

Some sound bytes from this festival:

Couple of years back on Karwa Chauth, the moon was not shining bright. Question asked: Why does the moon not shine so bright on Karwa Chauth?

Because there is so much demand for the moon, the voltage drops :)

Ek Bhi Nahin

A friend of mine has two kids. Once when they happened to be out of house, a guest came to their house and they were received by the kids. The kids invited them to drawing room and made them comfortable on the sofas. Those were the days of KBC - a popular game show on TV where Amitabh Bachchan used to play a game with the people where he used to ask them questions and give them four options to chose. The kids were impressed and decided that it was time they played KBC. So they asked the guests:

Aap kitne gilas paani piyenge? Inmein se ek chuniye

1. 1 Glass
2. 2 Glass
3. 3 Glass
4. Ek bhi nahin

The guests said "2 Glass" (The husband and wife had come and both were thirsty). The kids (in Amitabhh style):

Bilkul Galat Jawaab. Sahi jawaab hai "Ek bhi nahin"

Chote Bache (Kids)

There is a popular saying in Hindi - Chote Bache bhagwaan ke samaan hote hai (Kids are like God). This is True. And kids are funny too. Just watching their actions can be an experience in itself. A friend of mine narates great stories about his kids behavior at house. Some instances below:

• Ok, bye, thankyou - This is his ending statement after he is done with his talk on the phone.
• Chup ho ja nahin to bhaga kar shaadi kar lunga - This is the effect serials have on kids today. One of my friends tells that his nephew uttered this to his teacher. There wasn't anything funny after he said that though :)
• One of my nieces has a wonderful style of sleeping. She will put her legs in the air and sleep. Just looking at her makes it look funny.
• Ofcourse you cannot beat the kids at anything. One of my relatives son was shouting. I thought I could beat him at that. You bet. He beat me hands down.
• Papa, party: A colleague of mine used to take his son to the marriages they attend. Once they took him to a birthday party and now his son has changed his request from "Papa, shaadi" to "Papa, party"
• Try teaching A for Apple to them....... Send me a message if you are able to teach them without loosing your cool
• Bhaiya school jaayega - That was mine favorite when I was a kid
  

Pilot Project

I tried to search the web to understand the meaning of Pilot Project. I could not a satisfactory answer. But somehow this term has found its entry into the dictionary of our office as something which is being tried by a person for the first time. To elaborate, it is something which you are trying your hands on for the first time and it is not your forte till now, but you would like it to be. For ex. A software engineer who has been into testing and wants to move into development would consider his / her first development project as a Pilot Project which would launch him / her into the world of Development.

Not sure who is responsible for generating the term, but it has consumed a major portion of our lunch time discussions and has been the centre of lots of our office humour.

Kehat vaibhav suno bhai entrepreneur
Pilot Project ki leela se bacho dear

It is very funny!

We had gone to see Bhool Bhulaiya yesterday. As we had some time left for the show, we started doing some shopping and bought a T-Shirt for me. We took it along with us to the cinema hall. We were greeted at the cinema hall entrance by an employee of the hall who refused to allow us entry as we were carrying a poly with the T-Shirt in it. He requested us to go to the Basement and come back as we still had time for the movie (He had not looked at our tickets till now and yet he knew we had time left for the movie to start. I must admit he was a smart guy - all pun intended). We were in no mood to go 4 floors down to the basement just to put a T-Shirt at a counter and come back. I took the T-Shirt out, put it on and we moved inside. All this happened in front of the guy and he managed a small smile on his face. Seems funny and it is - however the purpose is all lost and suddenly the decision to not allow people to carry polythenes inside theatre seems absurd. They should put up some machinery to check that out. It is not that tough, I believe ................

Some days are just very interesting!

30th March, 2007 happened to be my last day with Conexant. As it was the last day, I had lots to do in terms of doing the paper work and saying Hi and Bye to everyone I had known for the past 4 years and 9 months stay with Conexant. As if this was not enough for the day, some thing interesting happened. We have a common parking area for cars. I came in late in the morning and I had to park my car in a zone where it had to be kept on neutral because it was located in front of other cars. After our routine lunch walk, we were going back to work through the parking area when I could not locate my car in the area where I had parked in the morning. The interesting day started. I started looking for the car but could not locate. When I finally managed to find it, it was located at 90 degrees to the original parking location. This could not have been done without the keys of the car or unless Vir Hanuman himself had done it. As the probability of the second option is almost next to none, I took a look at my pocket. Indeed the keys were still there. When I came close to my car, the stereo inside the car was playing and the drivers window was half down. The probability of the first option was also zero as the keys were there. So there had to be a third possible option of which I was not aware of. I asked the security guard how the car came there.

Vaibhav: Car yahan kaise aayi? Iski chaabi to mere pass hai.
Guard: Sir, yeh aapke car hai.
Vaibhav: Koi shak!
Guard (to his friend): Tabhi chaabi bahar nahin nikal rahi
Vaibhav: Kaunsi chaabi. Iski chaabi to mere pass hai.
Guard (finally with the whole story): Sir, hamein laga yeh Ravi Sir ki gaadi hai. Maine unse chaabi lekar isko theek se park kar diya lekin ab chaabi nahin nikal rahi.
Vaibhav (inside my mind): Lag gayi watt.......

How can a car be opened with another cars keys? It can even be started with another cars keys and moved around. Well, DAMM the car companies.

We tried getting the keys out but Fevicol ka mazboot jod tha, aise hi thode na tootega. We then went to a local Automobile market. The local mechanic (who knows everything about anything related to Automobiles) tried to get the keys out. Lekin Fevicol holds ground. He decides that the car lock needs to be opened. Hmmmmm. Now it was getting more complex. We decided to take the car to showroom before everything got opened by the mechanic bhaiya.

In the showroom, the mechanic tried to remove the key from the lock. We asked him why he was not opening the lock instead. He said that the lock is made in such a way that either the key would come out or the whole lock needs to be replaced. HIP HIP HURRAY to the mechanic bhaiya. A new car lock comes for 3.5 to 4K. After some effort the keys came out. THANK GOD for it.

Ghar ke one liners

Jeetey raho, sukhi raho. Ishwar vidya de, bal de, budhi de, tandrusti de. Vidwan bano, maan-baap ka naam roshan karne wale bano.

Cha peesen, roti khaansen

Chottey.......

Guddo.......

Motto.......

Ved.......

Mammi, tun badi nikammi. Teri jaan nu bachen rovan, tun khele rammi.