Childhood notions

As the reality that I am a father sinks in, I find myself frequently in conversation about children, childhood and their notions. The fact that there is an army of children under four in my extended family only makes this even more frequent.

My niece is a non-stop talker! As she gets home from playschool she keeps rattling things apparently related her own experience at school that day. What she speaks about is anyone's guess. But one thing can be said for sure. What she speaks about is always unrelated to what she does while talking. Almost as if she has two brains that work independently. One for speaking and another of everything else!

She sometimes says "You always speaking, no eating that why I keeping standing!" and sometimes she says "woh nai chahye" (Hindi for "I don't want that). When I ask her what she talking about, she says "That is my friend at schools. She speaks in Tamil"

Come to think of it, my own childhood memory tells me that I was no different. There was a time I believed that there are only three languages in the whole world. Tamil, Hindi and English. And there are only three religions in the world. Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Hindus speak Tamil, Muslims speak Hindi and Christians speak English. Real simple!

I have also believed that men are of two categories, the ones with mustache and the ones without. The ones with mustache smoke and the ones without it don't smoke. So, if anyone asked why my dad never had a mustache, I would have likely answered "Because he doesn't smoke! The day he started to have mustache, he would automatically start smoking!"

What I carried for work yesterday!

As I started for work yesterday, I carried the weirdest set of items to the office, none of it relevant to work.

• Pair of running shoes, running shorts and a bright yellow running T-shirt (which friends from my earlier company can't forget and will miss forever!)
• Quarter kg of lady's finger (Okra) and a piece of Brinjal.
• A frock that would fit a three-year old, a T-shirt and a pair of trousers that would fit a five-year old
• A pair of formal pants, T-shirts, towel, tooth brush, soap box and under garments! 

We had a sports event at work in which I participated after which I was going to my brother's place to stay over the weekend. Conspicuous in its absence was the laptop! I forgot it at work the previous day! :)

Meeting Deadlines

It has been such a long time since I filled up this space. Goes to show that not a lot of fun is going around in my life. But this is one strip that made my day today!

Sathish Acharya's Kopykatman on Osama's death

Sathish Acharya's cartoons continue to impress me. I think going through his cartoons is one sure shot way of exercising and reducing my bloating tummy! Here is his take on Osama's death and "burial at sea". Click on the image to make it readable

Lighter side of life: Bath

Today's conversation
My wife: "Why don't you go take bath?".
Me: "Let me have a hot cup of filter coffee and warm breakfast and go fully fresh to take bath!" :)

Sathish Acharya's cartoons!

Sathish Acharya's cartoons are part of my daily diet nowadays! Here are a couple of his recent best!

"Amul Baby"




After World Cup victory

Mixed bag of Picture jokes

A friend and ex-colleague of mine has a Facebook album full of a mixed bag if picture jokes. Quite a few of them are exceptional. Here are a few I liked!

Anand Arumugam

Anand Arumugam: "I connected Blogger to my http://flavors.me page - http://flavors.me/anandarumug"

Work is...?

Mosque @ Ground Zero

Last post was about Laught IT Out... and this one is about Satish Acharya's World of an Indian Cartoonist. Take a look!

Feeding Baby Turtles

Laugh IT Out has some really good sense of humour. Here is one sample from their blog!

Homely vs. Ugly

I am a member of my company's Toastmasters club which is a platform for developing speaking, and leadership skills. If you think you can talk and command others well, you can always take to providing finding faults in the name of "constructive feedback" to those who are practicing it.

Anyway, in one of the meetings, a speaker used the phrase "a homely girl" intending to mean "a girl-next-door". The speech evaluator took the stage after the speech and said "The word homely is a commonly misused word among Indians. Homely actually means ugly." Then he almost landed himself in a soup while trying to explain the roots of the word. He said "The word is used to say that the girl is better of staying at home than coming out in public". While the male section of the crowed started laughing heartily, the female section started blinked with an uneasy smile on their face clearly trying to swallow their words of retribution. But one of them was in a mood to spit it all out. "Why is it only for girls?" she exclaimed and now the guys shut up and the girls were smiling glad that one of them went after the guys! The speech evaluator threw his hands up and could only make funny faces in defense not knowing what to say to get out of the Amazon's attack. Then in a flash of a second, one guy from the crowed answered.

"Oh be glad that girls have a euphemism. Guys are just plain ugly"

And now the laugh was louder and evenly participated. The speech evaluator was relieved but still had a foolish smile on his face!

World of an Indian Cartoonist

I have been following the blog "World of an Indian Cartoonist", the blog of a self-taught cartoonist whose has seen good reception recently. His recent cartoon on the world record setting tennis match between two unknowns in the Wimbledon is specifically very funny. Posting it here with due credits!

Seinfeld

Oh the work is loading today. Its not just loading it is so damn boring simultaneously. On top of it there is this annoying TV serial in which one visibly cruel lady wants to do all the bad things in the world to a lot of people around her who can't deliver a dialog well. (May be they deserve it!)

I badly wanted to laugh and started browsing for quotes by comedians. I tried Jim Carrey, but then I remember Seinfeld. How could I forget him. And boy did I laugh! Here are a few of his!

• I was the best man at the wedding. If I'm the best man, why is she marrying him?
• Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge.
• Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you've got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem.Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.
• Why do they call it a "building"? It looks like they're finished. Why isn't it a "built"?
• Men don't care what's on TV. They only care what else is on TV.
• You can measure distance by time. "How far away is it?" "Oh about 20 minutes." But it doesn't work the other way. "When do you get off work?" "Around 3 miles."

But this is the best one! I was just laughing with tears fill I can't bear the cramps in my stomach!

"I will never understand why they cook on TV. I can't smell it. Can't eat it. Can't taste it. The end of the show they hold it up to the camera, "Well, here it is. You can't have any. Thanks for watching. Goodbye."

Curious about carnatic music

Ladies in my in-laws' family are experts-of-sorts in carnatic music. Actually they are experienced academicians too, but so are gents in that family. So that doesn't count! :) To the contrary, I am almost a zero. I say "almost" because, my sister had trained as carnatic singer for a few months and I learnt one song from her! So that counts!

Anyway, their presence has brought me in proximity to a lot of carnatic music as they watch all the music concerts in TV and start discussing its nuances and technical details. That has made me notice a few things that I would otherwise never notice and ask questions that I otherwise wouldn't have asked. I surprise myself with my power to observe and surprise them with my power to question. It gives me a "second to none" feeling. Here is a sample of a few such questions.

• "Why don't percussion artists ever sit in the middle and lead the concert?"
• "How do they select those people sitting behind everyone with the tambura? Do they actually know carnatic music or do they pick anyone from the studio at the last moment?"
• "Do the string instrument players bleed through their fingers?"
• "I have never seen a "naked" mruthangam.Why is the mruthangam always wrapped in a cloth?
• "When the Veena artists wear the metal thing on their fingers, do they miss to vibrate the string because they don't get to feel it with their fingers?"
• "Why do the artists always appear in traditional sarees and dhotis for the concerts? Why don't they even wear a salwar or a kurtha?"

Off late, I find that my wife tries to stop me from asking questions to my mother-in-law. I think she is getting jealous of me getting closer to her expertise in carnatic music. Something reminds me of the famous Sidhuism. "Wickets are like wives, you never know which way they will turn"

Rudali

I have been watching the ad since few years.. Every time I watch this as like the first time :)

Bliss!

Courtesy: Reader's Digest

Prayer and Belief

Today so far has been a typically busy day with customers kicking my butt all over my company (not allowing me to have a good afternoon siesta with my head monotonously banging on my keyboard). But only so far. In comes a forward from J that made my day much better. This one is cool! So, read on...

In a small town in America , a person decided to open up his bar business, which was right opposite to a church. The church & its congregation started a campaign to block the bar from opening with petitions and prayed daily against his business.

Work progressed. However, when it was almost complete and was about to open a few days later, a strong lightning struck the bar and it was burnt to the ground. The church folk were rather smug in their outlook after that, till the bar owner sued the church authorities for $2million on the grounds that the church through its congregation & prayers was ultimately responsible for the demise of his bar shop, either through direct or indirect actions or means.

In its reply to the court, the church vehemently denied all responsibility or any connection that their prayers were reasons to the bar shop's demise. In support of their claim they referred to the Benson study at Harvard that inter-cessionary prayer had no impact !

As the case made its way into court, the judge looked over the paperwork and at the hearing and commented:

'I don't know how I am going to decide this case, but it appears from the paperwork, we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire church and its devotees that doesn't.'

Any doubts?

Our company's community relations team recently conducted a science exhibition in which eighth grade students from a school nearby demonstrated their science projects. One girl stood out with the her crisp explanation of her project demonstrating the working of a hovercraft. The confidence with which she started out with her introduction, her project and the way it worked she looked more like a teacher than like a student. No less than four senior management staff members stopped by to watch her demonstration and all of them came away impressed and laughing. When she ended explaining Newton's third law and how hovercraft uses it, they all expected that to be the end of her demonstration and said "Well done". The puny 4 ft 8th grade kid universally, ignored the appreciation of 6 ft. MBAs and PhDs with double-digit work experience, looked all of them in the eye and jolted them to reality with an authoritative question, "Any doubts?".

Our company's COO, still recovering from the question half-an-hour later, while giving away the team awards told her in front of the crowd, "I am glad I got to learn a few science concepts today." Then he turned, smiled at her "I have no doubts. It is very clear!"

Busted!

I have two problems in my DNA. When I work, I take too many things up at the same time and smother myself. When I don't, I vegetate (and watch TV). Currently, I work. My to do list includes, but isn't limited to...

1. Conduct science exhibition at office
2. Print certificates for the participating students who used this as an excuse for not studying for their tests, not turning in home works and bunking schools.
3. Send out mails, stick posters, announcing people to get their empty heads out of their computers and show up for the exhibition!
4. Practice dance for the upcoming event where we are supposed to grab the attention who are actually more interested in the booze! :)
5. Oh! (almost slipped my mind)...and the numerous customers who believe that I am actually working on their problems, awaiting an answer from me

Being the great time management guru I am, I spent my time dancing when I was supposed to be sleeping and working when I was supposed to be printing out certificates. So far its alright, but going by this sequence all of a sudden meant, that I am forced to sleep while I am supposed to be working, and sleepy I was nodding every other minute. Not that I haven't done that before, but its a couple of days before the visit of a company big shot and the entire site is buzzing like a beehive to impress him and I could sense passers-by thinking "probably the guy who helps the company best when he is sleeping!"

You know that kind of embarrasses me. So, I thought I would go to RVD's cube who does a lot of good work behind the scene including designing my certificates. RVD also sits against a wall along with an empty cube. So after pretending to discuss something with RVD, I ensconced myself in the chair in the empty cube convinced that I can sleep without being judged by anyone else (except RVD, but well its still a good deal).

Not a minute after I passed out and I was shaken out of my sleep by a thunderous laughter that came down from 6 feet, 8 inches above me. As my eyes were still trying to refocus his image, he said "Wake up man! Its work time". Then he promptly turned to RVD, clarified something and then whizzed away, while I was still trying to form a clear image of his in my brains. RVD laughed heartily and said, "Now that you are busted by our site director, you have nothing to lose anymore! At least enjoy a good sleep"!

You just can't imagine :)

The pick up

Invited by a Japanese colleague of mine, I had an opportunity to go to a concert by Dobet Gnahore, a singer form Ivory Coast along with my wife. The concert had a lot of good things about it. It was at Taj Banjara, walkable distance from my home. The concert was by inivitation only. That means the concert, a glass of Coke (or Minute Maid if you haven't grown up yet!) and two pieces of unidentifiable, but vegetarian snacks are all FREEEEEE!

But it so happened that despite the proximity of the hotel to my home, my wife and I got late at work and I decided to pick her up and reached the hotel directly.

There were quite a few Indians from the posh areas of Hyderabad along with foreign nationals from various parts of the world. So, in the eve of the concert, I stood around with a Russian lady named Ann (Oh she now has the unique distinction of being the first and by far the only Russian that Badhri has met! :D), my Japanese and Indian colleague-cum-friends and got on with the introduction drill. When my round came, I introduced my wife to Ann. My Japanese friend, who had quite a fun at my wedding said excitedly, that we are married for just 11 months now. That focused Ann's thought around my wife and me. Realizing that the majority of the gathering is from my office, Ann pointed to my wife and asked "Is she from your office too?". In a moment of thoughtlessness, I replied "Naaaa, I picked her up!".

In the next moment, I noticed an expression that said "You didn't mean that!" and gave a look at my wife with her a grin. My Indian friend laughed till her stomach ached (and every time I make a fool of myself, there she is doing that! I think it is all her fault! :D) My Japanese friend followed while my wife looked at with an intimidating "Lets see how you manage your dinner tonight!". I quickly made a vain attempt to salvage the situation saying " I mean...... I picked her up from her office before coming for the concert". But as every one went on laughing holding their belly as if to ensure that their intestine didn't burst out, no one bothered listening!"

PS: This introduces a new category "Shoot yourself in the foot"

Scary Pranks

Meal out of movie stars

Everyone loves to make a meal out of movie stars. But this one takes it to a more literal sense.

Remembering the travails of a South Indian male

This article was introduced to me by a childhood buddy of mine and boy I almost soiled myself with laughter. I could only relate to this more because I am one of the "Venkatachalapathy"s myself, but could still take heart from the fact that there are still "Blossom Babykutty"s to who I can point my finger at laugh. Oh it does give so much fun to laugh at others especially when you are not much better off than them!

I read this article much before I started blogging and since then I find that this article has spread across the web like H1N1. It would be a pity to have a blog dedicated to comedy without talking about this one.

If you feel like a child lost in a pub, read the article.