It was a normal day at our Gent’s hostel. BK, my room mate was undergoing his version of bathing at our common restroom to get rid of the dirt accumulated on his body after a football match.

T and myself were sitting idle, bored to the core in our room. Our cells (mobiles I mean) were laid across on the table. BK’s 3310 rang. T and I checked the number, it was a not in BK’s address book so we decided not to take the call.

The phone rang again.

We did not bother.

It rang again.

T took the phone and nodded as he listed to the caller.

T : Yes.

10 seconds

T : Yes I will hand over to him.

And T handed the phone to me.

I was like WHAT? Is it someone I know?

Me: hello?

Caller : Sir I am R, hope you remember me.

Me : Nah I don’t. I am……..

Caller : Sir, I don’t have much time, its serious issue now. Its time we act.

Me: aha?

Caller : Mr K is creating much issues. He thinks he is boss. Its time we get our people together and act against him.

Me : oh? (what the hell is he talking about? I thought)

Me : But I….

Caller : Sir like I said we are arranging a meeting with protest rally tomorrow near the office.

Maybe it was time to be funny or just play along. This guy surely got the number wrong. And we were in college, so it was indeed an opportunity to have some fun.

Me : Okay. Let discuss tomorrow. So the meeting is near the office?

Caller : Yes. There will be 30 of us.

Me : Cool. That is good enough. Now will you send a car?

After 10 seconds of silence

Caller : oh ! For? what sir?

Me : Well you have to send me a car. If you want me to come !

Caller : well sir, I will try to arrange one.

I wondered what the caller would be thinking now.

Me : And what’s the agenda?

Caller : Well we want you to talk sir.

Me : I mean after the meeting.

Caller : Well we will protest and then…… leave?

Me : I want food……. Biriyani.

20 seconds.

Me : You there?

Caller : Sir?

Me : Yes

Caller : Well sir, we were actually….

Me : Will you arrange biriyani or you wont?

Caller : SIR!

Me : YES!

Caller : I… er. Could… Yes sir I will try.

Me : So call me back once you arrange my pickup and biriyani.

Caller : Err. Oh……. Okay…… Sir.

Me : Bye Then.

Beep.

T and I rolled out with laughter. We repeated the caller’s disgust and laughed.

BK, minus all the dirt, entered the room. Seeing us laughing he asked what happened. As I was not making any sense, T explained the entire story. BK joined and we laughed for the next 10 minutes repeating the caller’s surprise and confusion.

BK: Whom do you said the caller wanted?

T : George

And T laughed.

BK: Who?

T : George hahahahaha.

BK : GEORGE? MAN ()@*#()@*#()@*#()

T and Me : ????

BK : He is my uncle, he was using this SIM before he switched the service provider. This would have been an important call.

T and I were… err, speechless and didn’t know what to say.

BK was in rage. T tried to escape out the window, but couldn’t, so decided to look out the window instead.

BK : What did you guys do?. oh MAN !!!

Me : Well the damage is done, its better to leave it.

BK : No I have to call my uncle and also apologize to the caller.

I managed to get out of room and escape. T followed.

Epilogue.

Later when BK was back to normal and was at peace, we learned that his uncle gave him a lecture on how to take calls. The caller bashed him with abuses on how the youngsters take things lightly.

BK was in rage for 2 days and wanted to beat us up. But then we were in hiding.

P.S : I feel sad about the caller whose time we wasted on this stupid prank and BK, who got all the bashing. But then, when I think about it years later, it’s worth a laugh.

Vishesh and Nita tagged me with the simplest tag of this ‘tag season’

    Write 6 words.

 Love, Family, Faith, Dreams, Happiness, Friends

       Ten things people here do not know about me

1. I day dream a lot.
2. I am cynophobic.
3. I love music when it’s played in full volume.
4. I (plan to) exercise everyday.
5. My nickname is xylene because my first email id(1999) started with ‘xylene’.
6. I hate vegetables.
7. I am patient (for 5 minutes).
8. I watch cookery shows, although I don’t try out any.
9. I am a Piscean.
10. I love color green.

 5 People I love to hate?

1. ‘Auto driver type’. I don’t like people who change their word every 100 meters.
2. ‘Destroy something else to get back type’. To define this kinda people I have to go back to college when one guy who had strong grudges against my friend, pulled out my friend’s bike’s petrol tube to get back at him. There was a BIG fight after that. :D. I don’t like such cowards.
3. ‘The preach only, no practicing type’ or ‘looking at the speck of sawdust in the brother’s eye while paying no attention to the plank in his own eye type’   This is self explanatory.
4. ‘The leech type’ who tries to use others for their own benefit. This includes some people who come over, when they are visiting the city, spend a week get their work done and then don’t call again, until of course when they visit the city again.
5. ‘Typical relative type’ who poke his/her head in every matter.

I am tagging Balu, Suda, sandeep, Reema and ish. I think everyone else has done this, if not, be my guest. 

There is an open position at Microsoft. You can apply here.

I don’t have anything new to write about what is happening in Kerala. Its strikes and protests happening there, along with a student strike yesterday.

Just another day in Kerala !

Now the latest reason why the so called students are protesting is because of a controversial textbook introduced this year for Class 7. Yes you heard it right Class 7.

So what does this text book contain that makes it controversial? The first chapter contains lessons about “”Life without religion” . The opposition is arguing that this is communist propaganda and the Marxist party in kerala is trying to inflict communism and atheism in children. The ruling party argues that the textbook was approved by a board comprising of all party members.

Now I wouldn’t say that the ruling party is right about adding a lesson ‘Life without religion’ for the 7th Std Student text book (”Life without religion” for bunch of 13 year olds?), nor I would support the opposition on how the protests are being carried out.

The seventh standard students are not protesting, nor are the teachers. Its the ’so called students’ from KSU(Kerala Student’s Union), MSF and Youth Congress that are protesting, well not peacefully. They are on a rampage across the state, destroying public property, burning school books, beating up policemen and media persons, disrupting traffic and destroying government vehicles.

Now these are not something new in Kerala, if you tune into any Malayalam news channel, the half hour program will contain news only about strikes, hartals, bandhs, protests, and more protests. Well its the only place in the world which observed a hartal when Saddam was hanged.

Hey, all is not wrong in kerala. The people of kerala however can breath a sign of relief about one thing, the bus operators association had postponed their planned strike for today to next week.

Welcome to God’s own country.

Related Reading.

80 Shut Downs in 18 Months

[CROSSPOSTED]

Update : Post updated with a link to the news site.

Now the topic might sound like some techincal paper. All I have to give is some alternative mode of transport other than the Auto Rickshaws in Bangalore.

Scenario #1.

You want to travel  >10 KM to the railway station. You take an auto, its meter is tampered (FOR SURE, trust me) and you end up paying  105 (as the meter shows 15kms, while the actual distance is 10) + 40 (for luggage, even if you alone) + 20 (extra, Bangalore special, this is variable and depends on how fluently you can argue in kannada or hindi). = 165Rs total for a mere 10Km trip.

Scenario #2.

You want to pick someone from the railway station(10Kms) and you take an auto to the railway station and another back home. So the total would come around 300Rs. Warning : Don’t take prepaid auto’s they would fight with you when you reach the destination and ask for ‘Bangalore Extra’ citing reasons like the petrol price hiked or your house is too far, or that he wants to buy a new flat, or that he did not pay his emi for his new car and so on.

Now the Alternative would be to take a city cab. You could hire a city cab for 400Rs in Bangalore for 4 hours or 40KMS(whichever comes first). So if you want to pick someone from the railway station and hang around in the city, hire a cab. That’s cheaper, safer and comfortable. You can bargain and get a good rate fixed and trust me, they will stick to their promise unlike our beloved auto drivers.

Scenario #3.

You want to go to the airport? Autos cannot take you to the new airport. You would end up paying 850Rs for the city taxis. Get Meru cabs instead. These are premium cabs (with a.c, Mahindra Logan cars) and will charge you 15Rs/KM, as they won’t charge you extra for one direction trip ( The normal call taxis (without a.c, maruthi omni cars) will ask you extra charge for one direction trip).

Or Airlift Taxis which is best if you are alone and a single seat would cost you 300Rs.

or BMTC Vajara Volvo buses from designated busstops for 120Rs.

My advice to anyone travelling in Bangalore is DONT TAKE AN AUTO!! (By not following this advice you are inviting trouble. Like and old saying, walking into Lion’s Den !)

Scenario #4.

You are not sure where you want to go and how long you are gonna hangout and don’t want to bargain with the auto nor taxis, take the city volvos.

Here is an interesting forward I got. The message is clear !

Click on the picture to enlarge.

It’s a lovely day. I woke up in the morning, got ready for work, drove my car out from the garage and parked it near the garden. I took the garden hose and started filling up the fuel tank with…………..WATER !

Now you guys might be wondering what I am talking about. Well, I am talking future here, Japanese Company Genepax has come up with a car that will run on water. Yes W.A.T.E.R.

H2O guys !!!!!

So my dream future is gonna be something like what I mentioned above. Well not exactly because I might have to use distilled water, which by the way is cheap now, but once it’s the fuel it will be taxed at 100% + state tax + local tax + cess +…….

 !!!!

I think I should stop dreaming

“Time management training is excellent ” said someone.

“Only if the trainer comes on time” said someone else.

Have you faced a situation ….

when a 10′O clock meeting might start at 10:30(tentative). When people you don’t know would be taking part in the meeting hanging around in the room and walking away as soon as their cell phones ring/vibrate. When the participants would be hanging outside the room until you poke your head out and say “lets start???”.  When, you are called for a meeting only to find that, that room is already occupied by someone else who update you every 5 minutes that their meeting will be over in the next 5 minutes. When, you are called for a mandatory meeting only to find that it has nothing to do with you or your team.

For some, time is not a fixed quantity, well time is variable, but that doesn’t mean that  you plan for a meeting at 10 and turn up at 10:30. And worse when the meeting is prolonged often with discussions out of topic and which can be taken offline!

Time in India can be classified as

1. Railway Time - When you start or stop a meeting very late.

2. Bollywood Time - When you are on time for the meeting, but the meeting has already started 10 mins early ! This is called Bollywood Time as you always miss the parts of movies as they start issueing tickets late and start the movie ahead of scheduled time. Not applicable to multiplexes though.

3. Politics Time - When people are only concerned about their own time and not about the rest.

Let me conclude with a true story.

A friend of mine (A) is well known for his tardiness. His conversation with B:

A : “B, you asked me to wait at the Bus depot at 10 AM and I was on time. Where were you???”

B : “You were on time ?”

A : “YA ! you guys blame me for not being punctual and there I was waiting for you for an hour”

B : ” WHAT THE beep beep beep” followed by 3 mins of abusive language..

After 3 mins

B  : “I said 10 AM yesterday! You are 24 hours late !!!!!!”

I got tagged by Sandeep n Sakhi.
Please thoughtfully consider the following, and choose one item for each of the categories below. (Be sure to describe your reasons for choosing)

One religious work from a non-familiar tradition you’ll read:
Kuran. I have tried reading an English version when I was a kid.

One music video–that you like–from your “least likely to listen to’ genre:
The one can remember is ‘Palavatam’ by Vineeth Sreenivasan its a new malayalam music video.

A book from a genre you almost never read, that you have read, or you will read (promise!):
 I always want to complete all chapters in Bible. It’s sad that I have not done that till now.

Somewhere you’d never thought to go on holiday/vacation, and why it might be fun to go there?
New York, I just love those skyscrapers and Times Square.

A specific food you’ve never tried, but will because of this meme, honest!:
I would love to taste the worms and roaches that the Chinese eat. It should be tasty. I am not kidding. I love frog legs by the way. Yummy.

A sport or game you really hate or haven’t tried yet but are willing to give one more go:
I could give a try at golf.

A style of dance you probably won’t try (we won’t make you promise on this one):
Kathakali. I wouldn’t try. Well it takes a lifetime to learn.

A career job you don’t feel you’re suited for, and why:
Teaching. I am sure I suck.

An item that’s “thinking out of the box’ for this meme that hadn’t been included:
Hmmm. Hmmmm again. Hmmmm. Why did you start blogging? : hmmm again. Ans : why did I ever start doing this meme ??

Is there one thing in life you wanted to do, and will do because of this meme, what will it be?
Do a space walk. I really want to see our dear earth from outer space.

I guess everyone has done this tag, so I am not tagging anyone.

We have heard about movie remakes….. now listen to this :

haha, sounds familiar?

Now this

haha again.

I have more links like this with me(got as forward), from Bhool Bullaiyya to Jab We Met, all the recent Bollywood Movie songs are inspirations (read COPIED).