brainwaves

Scammed ep2

2009-03-07T08:19:00.000-08:00

When you come to a different country, a lot of things take a turn, I mean apart from your bank balance, which just decides to take a dive and only afterwords does it realize that he (or it) forgot to tie the Bunjee rope!

Apart from that, it all of a sudden changes, for good or for bad, depends on how unlucky or lucky you are (I dont believe in Hard work!). And there are times that you are led to believe that the whole world is bent on picking on you for no reason. It can start with a small thing, like that innocent lady who walks her dog every day on the pavement and with whom you had a 3 month long 'good morning' routine, ignores you and suddenly starts telling Lucy (the dog) "dont bark at this person" repetedly, or that dog peeing on you, or you stepping on dogs poop, or you dropping your half eaten candy bar which you found under your pillow that morning or a million other things. And then it graduates to your boss at work telling you repetedly how incompetent you are with all his sarcastic charm, or your system at work crashing down, or just one or two softwares which you need to work crashing down, or you forgetting to load the 150 lines code which you had developed last night to your jump drive (I'm not a computer geek, so 150 is still big for me), or forgetting to take your jump drive after you had remembered to load it, or you realizing that you should've just emailed the code to yourself, or, well, you know the stuff!!... What i'm trying to get at is that when all this becomes a part of your life, you end up being vulnerable to possibilities of something good, and at the sight of a bleak ray of hope, you follow it, ignoring the fact that that bleak ray of hope might be coming from the patented lamp made by Hope Inc. and was carried by a fellow with a crooked nose and one eye and a skeleton arm and a flea crown, who just happened to find you in that dark tunnel.

So if your imagination is still in working condition you'd know by now what this is leading to. Yes, a description of another scam. We live in a quite place in Chicago (come to think of it, US is quite in general, unless at war!), me and my roommate are students and are looking for another roommate. On being suggested to put up advertisements online (something you just have to get used to, internet, and we are just not that used to the whole internet thing, and you might wanna contest that but if you dont think its true, youre hardly an Indian anymore). Craiglist, Sulekha (yes it works here too, or here only!!), and what not. But, have you ever heard the saying, 'the best deal is what you pay for', me neither, just made that up, but still, I took that seemingly credible advice and found a paid service that would find me a roommate, 'Roommates.com', i pay for 3 days premium service after i started getting replies on my profile which i could see only if i pay for it (its a neat revenue generating technique come to think of it), and see the replies. 16 yr old Gay male, a transgender, prostitute, transgender, hot looking chick, student, student, hot chick, gay female, student, one who admits she smokes a lot, hot chick, summarize the replies. Hot chicks and students were the first to get my replies, which is any 'normal' person would do.

Students didn reply back, one Hot chick (please notice capital H of Hot) wants to come and stay. Yes, she doesn want to see the apartment, doesn want any other place, she wants to send the money to me by a cashiers check through her agent who is also arranging for her flight, she sells african beads and is from Spain, she sends her pics and i'm flat (awesome figure, 5 feet 8, sends her pics wearing velvet pants, what do you expect!!), we have long email sessions (the email conversation was almost 25 replies long by now, i even know her philosophy in life, her roommates in Spain, why she went into the bead business, and they were all very good conversations, she signed off with 'your future roommate'). Then it stopped. I have not entertained any other reply from anyone else, cuz she wants me to confirm before she sends money (of course!!), and then she doesn send any reply, nothing, i want to know when is she sending the money, what s the order number (they have that thing where you can track the packages, internet!), I dont wanna spend from my pocket, which is empty anyways. Nothing. I put the ad again, and then she is back. 'Hey, sorry I was in Africa for some business, heres the details, '23-watever-234351!#$' (you can imagine a nagging female voice to go along with it, might be fun), I check the status theres nothing to be found, and after some time it gets delivered...

Now, what has not been told yet is that my ex-roomie expected it to be scam from the start. I just took him as a sadist and didn care much at first but when i saw a the scam alert on the website, well then you have to stop thinkin that luck was on your side all this time. I shoot an email with the details to customer care and they say 'sieze all contact with this person' and that he/she is a known scammer and that i should contact IRS!!

In case you are wondering how it works, the check is a fake, however, the banks here make the balance available as soon as you deposit it. Now if you withdraw money from your account immediately, which according to you is already there, and give it to the nice lady mentioned above, then when the bank finds out the check is a frod, you are indebted, and you are labelled as a check frod, and your account is sealed, not to mention your credit history is screwed royally, you would almost never again get a loan or a credit card, or rent a car, or a house, or anything else. I got a check for $5430, when i asked for $1000, first month rent and deposit. you do the math.

PS: be safe!!! be careful!!! peace!!! all these statements cannot help you...

PPS: in case they do... be safe!! be careful!!

scammed!!!!

2009-01-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

ok... this is what i want you to do... imagine with me here... it wont be hard, trust me...

you were tired, frustrated, so much that you almost gave a serious thought to becoming a hippie (also known as junkie in some cultures), but only got drunk and puked and lost all hope and you drowned in the alcohol swirl (you know what i mean, its hard to put that in words, i'm talking about the feeling where you feel like sleeping and wanting to stay awake and not say anything but talk to someone all at the same time, you know, yes you do... ). morning, woken up by a phone call (stay with me, the realization of the situation is necessary to justify what is gonna happen)... yes this is him...huh..."you have just been chosen to be the winner of a 1000$ gift card and that it'll be sent to you, just give your address for shipping"... shock, pause, brainwaves: could this be finally one of those moments when the stint of bad luck is over and the wheels have finally turned and the "new day" has dawned, and you say what the heck why not. If the situation was any different I would've analyzed the whole situation and observed the fact that she mentions that i was chosen in a draw conducted by VISA, the company that is on your credit card, of which i hold a debit card, and they already have my address on file, so why bother calling me n asking something which they should already know? But, as it turns out, $1000 is a pretty big amount, and its just address, what're they gonna do, send me a packet of Anthrax??!!!

Here, can i sleep now??!! No, you have also won along with it a subscription for 2 magazines every week, and you need to chose which magazines from a list of 60. Hmmm... ok... how bad can it be?!! I can always use some magazines, they look good in your bathroom, which also has a toilet, and a flush tank, with cover, over which you can keep them!! So what do you have!?? ESPN (sports, hmmm, a way to gain enough knowledge to stop those ManU fans in their tracks when they get offensive, which they always are, because they feel pity for the team that died, and think that they have somehow resurrected from ruins, and what not, sure they are on top of EPL, but thats because they have a lot more money, which is because of you (manU fans) !!), and National Geographic traveller (ooh, that'd be good, I can atleast learn about the places where I would go when I have enough money to buy Hawaii!!), GQ (now that was literally born to be in a bathroom!!!), etc etc (you thought I'm gonna list all 60 didn ya??)

now wait a second and i'll connect ya to our sales department... sure... hi this is AssHole, how can i help ya... well i was connected by AssHole(female), (something you'll notice, these guys always make sure they mention their names, like they are very unique and somehow is a sign of gaining trust, hello sir, good morning, this is Ben, how can i help ya, well i feel so comfortable already that i want to ask if he is the ben from Ben 10??!!), and she was mentioning about some magazine n some gift card. Yes, i'd be glad to help you now, let me explain, you can chose 3 magazines every week, you just have to pay for the delivery, which is 3.45$ a week, and you can get the magazines for the next 60 months (5 yrs!!!), now to make your life easier, we will charge you 50$ every month for the next 20 months, and pay nothing for the next 40. Now i can go ahead and book your order right now, would you like to use a VISA or a MasterCard?!!

ok hold, i thought this was free, m not gonna give my credit card number to someone who just called me in the morning and promise to send me something, and ask for it, what did you say the name of your company is?!! Blue whale publications, me googling as soon as he said it, and sure enough, more scam alerts than a legit website... thank you sir for your offer, but i'll buy those magazines myself...

This is a post intended to increase awareness, and protect your personal identity, and your money, and your sanity, and your account, and your money, oh i said that already... so thats all that you can save...

Me in my last 6 months here in the United States have been either a victim of or was almost a victim of about 4 scams/mishaps. sure enough, m gonna put em all up, after all my biggest fans, Me n Myself, deserve to know about it...

PS: Nothing mentioned in this post is fictional...

holiday season...

2008-12-23T17:13:00.000-08:00

hello guys,

this post is intended for mature audiences, reader discretion advised.

(its just a line i picked up watching videos at HULU.com, endlessly, they have a lotta free vids, some sitcoms, nude clips, completely legal, very boring movies and so on and so forth. that should tell you what i've been doing)...

people, what happened to the world we wanted to live in, no, we thought we wanted to live in anyways, i cant find one person who says life rocks, and i'm pretty sure this is not because of just the "winter blues". i mean i am so bored, i am practically trying to find out the luminosity of the light bulb in my room so that i can maybe attribute my dull and lazy attitude to it. or counting how many hair are stuck to my blanket (i said reader discretion advised, vide supra, if you think that was grose, watch out), looking forward to that laundry basket to fill up so that i can have reason to go down and wash my clothes (which is not gonna happen cuz i have many underwears and i dont do anything to make my clothes dirty), also looking forward to get some more groceries (which i did the last time i wrote) and so on and so forth.

a part of the reason, apart from my immense boredom, why i am writing this is that i am sick of discussing problems to my friends, who inescapably feel bad after i miserify them and want to do anything to make me feel better, sick of discussing girlfriend issues cuz nobody has one, and sick of finding reasons for it, which leads to some spirited discussions but m sick of that too, sick of planning ahead to go to a club and then cancelling because the cab company wont pick up the phone, sick of sitting in front of my laptop all day looking for some good movie to download, and waiting for it to download, sick of the buffering time taken by watchthesimpsonsonline.com, which gives my laptop all sorts of adwares but i still go and visit it, no hammer it, till i find an episode that is working fine. sick of eating raman noodle soup (creamy chicken flavour) for breakfast, lunch and dinner with same old set of vegetables and same old flavour, sick of the right arrow key on my laptop thats not working properly and feel free to add on...

if i was a drug addict, i'd have attributed these symptoms to it, but i know that thats not true, so there is nothing wrong with me. its the world thats goin insane...

and oh, this is when i have another 2 weeks of holidays...

enough... i'm gonna get a life, soon...

time to buy some booze i guess...

too little too late??!!

2008-12-14T17:50:00.000-08:00

hyello darlings,

i have observed that i am drawn to blogging only when i am not pathetically tensed about issues like who will be the next president of the united states, when will that damn paycheck come in, when i am gonna finally get a life, when will i stop cooking food for myself (this one has nothing to do with my single status, just that i am not that good a cook, and dont know many recipes), when will i know what i have to do in life, when will i get a hair cut (that might be today), sucker, when will the exams end, when will anybody who i know will do anything stupid so that i can make fun of him and laugh my guts out, when will it stop snowing here, when will i get rich, when will i start going to gym regularly, when will i develop a reading habit, when will this list end!!.

congratulations if you saw that little adjective in what i've written above, drop your name and i'll add you to my biggest fans list, no questions asked. but seriously guys, thats about all the reasons why i have not been blogging for a while. and it is days like today when i am done with my long due term paper and ended the semester, and when i have already watched 2 movies today (that'd be Go and Wimbeldon), and when it's not freeqing cold outside (its 12 C outside in mid december in chicago, has to be one of the miracles, or maybe its just that Bush decided to spend some billions on heating the whole city while he was away getting what he deserves, a shoe at his face, in baghdad, or it could be obama, but does he have that in him already??), i got distracted, sorry, what was i saying, never mind...

oh ya.. the reasons y m not blogging regularly... well thats all that had to say for now... i think... its time to buy some groceries, which are very darn expensive in chicago by the way...

pause

pause (this means that i'm waiting for that guy who is supposed to go with me to call so that i can leave)

pause

pause (one pause equals 2.76 min)

pause

how many minutes??

ya i'll let you get back to your pathetic lives, ya ya, its no secret, all our lives suck right now...

try n hav fun

ciao

welcome to amreeka

2008-09-27T21:07:00.001-07:00

So as you guys might know that I have now shifted my headquarters, or should I say, the awesome blog factory, to chicago, which is in america by the way, and no its not the capital, and yes its where the future president (of USA) is going to be from and yes its also the place where the Italian Mafia rocks (they actually have the sofa in Al-Capones' favourite club "preserved"... ewww...), and yes its near springfield where the awesome family of simpsons live (I sent them an email, but they never replied, I just dont think they ever grew into the future, cuz bart's still in 4th grade after trying to win Mr. Mischief of the year for over a decade in a row) and finally, as you might've noticed, I have become addicted to the simpsons...

So... how is amreeka different (spelling mistake intentional, in case you didn figure out y, I'm trying to hold on to my Indian roots)...well... here are some of the possible differences...

1. its a very very mean place when it comes to supporting poor people like me, u need to be able to spend about 28000 Rs just to cover your rent and food, home made that is, and cut out on booze, and if you are into smoking, thats it.

2. Chicks, well... they're there... but thats it... nothin you can do about them, if you can afford to get drunk in a hip club and with the help of 20 ml shots (cost: $5/Rs 250), then you can get some, untill that, sight seeing describes what best you should do... and if you got all worked up by the hot Indian ones you saw at the airports, they either dropped off in London, or got an urgent message to go back or something, cuz its just not possible that they made it to amreeka and no one landed up in a radius of 10 miles where you are... I still want to believe that "good luck" hasnt betrayed me...

3. Americans are poor too... trust me... so you can actually talk to them about the pathetic prices, and if you are lucky, they'll let you into their secret store or the secret market that opens at the river bank on sundays between 10am and 2pm.

4. You cant buy anything in small packs, an apple, $2, a whole carton of apples, $10, and they just dont care that you are gonna waste almost 75% of that... or they are just too poor at maths to figure out that there can be a price tag below $1 (Rs 47, last I checked).

5. The "Indian food" is not exactly Indian, if you are used to copiuos amounts of cheese and mayonnaise in everything ther, then its a different issue... and the ones that is, well... you wont be able to afford it...

6. your luck is gonna turn upside down, to think about it, you are upside down, all the time (THINK physically, transversing the barrier of mantle and earth's core). ya, so the luck, if its not working for you there, its still not gonna work, but if it is ther, it wont here, and if you are one of those who likes to blame everything on luck and can make excuses and stay happy, well, then you are lucky...

7. shoes (sport) and jeans are dirt cheap... and they are all made in Asia, cant figure out the economy though...

seriously, whats with the lecture, anyways, i'll cut it here, but the bottomline is, you MUST have a constant source of income (in $s), else, well, may god be with you, better, try looking for the devil, i have a feeling he might listen to you...

whatever...

just another... ya ya... I'm done now..

2008-09-17T17:47:00.001-07:00

FS (forward script): I know this episode is goin a bit longer than usual but i also know that you guys have not been completing your new year resolution to ameliorate your pathetic reading habit (source FBI). so read on...

Final day:

I'll spare u the deatails... I know U guys dont really care now that its been too long since the last post... and to be frank I wanted to write about something else when I realized what I've done to my greatest fans... to Me and Myself, sorry guys...

Anyways... I got the loan, wrote the sanction letter myself actually because I didn wanna watch the 'good' man struggle with the keyboard, maybe I felt worse about the keyboard, whatever.

Only regret, I cant fool anybody anymore with my Arsenal cap, actually its better, it saves me the trouble when a football enthusiast (and believe me there are many), or worse, a ManU fan (and there are more of these) comes and starts counting the times when someone missed some goal in some game anywhere in the last ten years and says Arsenal sucks. What do I do, well, I say ok, but they're gonna belt U this time, then they reveal they beat them hands down last week and that they are out of the league and I shut my mouth as these guys prepare their 'Arsenal' of jokes to go with the evening Beer.

Well u got the point, I'm goin into Baseball now.

Cubs rule... beat that...

PS: For once I am taking the better (easy) route, I'm in Chicago, and god save me if I try to be supportive of another team, sure the white sox fans try to contest me every now n then, its not as hard to direct their assault at the nearest cubs fan drunk n holding a pool cue though.

cheers...

just another day... the sequel...!!!

2008-06-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

day three:
Mr "I dont care who" body: "hanji hanji, are beta, when do you need the sanction letter?"
Me: "uncle... as soon as possible, i have a visa intervw on 1 jul, coming tuesday"
"are to take it tomorrow, abhi to u have time"
why the hell did i want to be honest, i have no idea... but hell... think of somethin, make him work... n then...
"uncle... u atleast please check if the documents are in order"
"ok ok"
yeah... i won this round... i was not gonna take a no for an answer...
"beta chai peeoge?"
do hell with your chai "ummm... ok...", i figured till the time i'm stuck with him with my chai, he'll be working on my case...
"ye lo, keep checking the documents that are ther on this list..."
another hour passed as he tried to teach me the significance of the documents that were not there, however "aap sindhwaniji ke bete ho to i'll still pass it, but"...
what the hell now...
"you took an education loan for your B.tech right?"
"yes uncle, from prashant vihar branch"...
"ok, i think there can be some complication"
oh my god... "what uncle"...
"nai beta we are not authorised to sanction a second time education loan, it has to be done by circle office"...
oh you wanna play tough huh..."here uncle, papa se baat kar lo..."
"hanjiiii... hanji hanji... haaaanji... haaanjiii... nai but we have to take permission from circle office... ok ji... lo beta"
over phone "hanji papa..."
"yar inse kuch nai hone wala... u do one thing, take a letter from them and go to the circle office... or better still fax it to them, i'll find out somebody ther to take care of it"
"hmmm... ok..."
"uncle aap letter bana do... we'll fax it to them"
"ok"... n then began letter no2... first half hour he was trying to figure out what to write... i guess this was the first time he had this kind of a problem... but he sure looked old enough to know his stuff... anyways... i bear again...

another hour and 80 words later he wanted to know who should put the signature on it... "guptaji... will u please sign it?,"
"hmmm... are get it done from saab inside na... i dont know if i'm supposed to sign it... "
naya panga,i bet u can smell rotten fish here too...
20 min later...
"here... u got the fax no..."
"ya... here... ########"
"are ye to send hi nai ho raha..."
wow... ab fax bhi... plz work plz work...
"han... sent..."
uuuhhh... nice... i should be smart here and let my dads contact in circle office know abt this...
"hello... uncle me nikhil speaking this side... sindhwaniji's son... did he talk to you...?"
"han beta... bolo..."
"Uncle, i've faxed that letter dad told u about..."
"fax...??? beta you have to bring the whole file here... then we'll take care from here itself... we'll need to see all the documents you see, cant really do it on the basis of a letter"
"uh... but u only have to give permission to these people here in the hub to grant me second time education loan"
"han han, u come here i'll take care... if you rush now, u can make it before lunch starts here"... beep... right!!!
"uncle..? hes saying i'll have to take the file there itself..."
"hmmm... what is he gonna do with it i wonder... ask your dad"
are yar... kabhi to stand up and take a decision on your own "papa...? hanji... he says i'll have to take the file there"
"what are these guys doin i dont understand, ok you take it there... drive carefully"
"ya ya"
right...

after convincing the guy in the HUB that i'll bring the file back and that he doesnt need to keep a photocopy of all the documents here, i move on...
i got 30 min to reach there before lunch... 25 min later m there...
"Mr somebody no. n-1, I just talked to you, m nikhil sindhwani (rings a bell, telephone bell perhaps ??!!!) "
"han han... bolo..."
"aapne file magwaee thi, here it is"
"ok ok, come with me"
N then he takes me out of his air conditioned cabin, shattering all my hopes of watching him work here while i try to recover from the shock this heat is giving me... only this time... i swear... never again...
he to Mr somebody no. n
"ye dekh lo zara inka...", to me "he'll take care"
after scrutinizing the documents, "hmmm, but isme to no proof is there, no loan account statement, no property papers, how can i give permission on this basis, and the letter the HUB people have written also has no details, chalo i'll still take care, u come after lunch, did u have lunch..???", ohhh... how polite of him... ass****...
"no uncle, i'll find something downstairs..."
after a twister and a fruit salad, not to mention after a long search for a decent food joint and finally taking it as a certainty that creator of my luck has decided to play with me again, espcially after a 15 min wait for my fruit salad or fruit chat should i say, at the local rediwala, i start back, all determined to get this thing done asap n get the hell outta here, then i saw nirulas, and the "it sucks" feeling peaked... ok... control now... dont blast just yet...

and then came the biggest blow... I knew i was missing something... My maroon nike arsenal cap... its not there... no prob... if this jerk finishes up the work soon, i can go back n check for my cap at the HUB office, please god, not my cap (ask my fans how possessive i am about the cap, i could kill anyone for it, exception... myself...)

"Uh... uncle..."
"han... sit please... i'm gonna have to write a letter for the senior officers here, they only will sign and approve"
and here i thought this was it, the last hurdle, how naiive...
"ji... ok... u gotta do what you gotta do..."
"hmmm... i can do this by myself but since some vital details are not there, i'd like you to stay and tell me about the missing pieces"
"ok..." atleast i didn have to convince him for staying here n see to it that he does his job properly...
a half an hour passed, time check, 3:15, we got enough time to take this letter n get it signed from whoever is supposed to sign it... n then take it back to the hub n get the sanction letter... this is where i introduce you to the guy who invented Murphy's law, the devil... i bet i saw him smile in the 5 sec nap i unconsciously took while the guy beside me was learning his lessons on how to write sentences and use MS office to cut and paste from an already saved format to be followed by editing, hopefully in the near future. I do remember that he knew the significance of saving the document cuz he was careful to do it after every letter he'd find out on the keyboard and after hitting it.
i'll spare you the details (what...!!!, i'm not that mean), of what followed in the next few hours... he finally completed the 140 word letter at 5:45 pm... sure enough it was because of my contribution to his knowledge of MS office that WE completed it...

i'll just describe the conditions at his office and that of my mind, hot, humid, no windows, i'm thirsty n he's not asking if i want tea or anything else, n my beloved cap might be lost forever because of this man... I think i did find out that i can be patient and what is called a cool customer, at least on the outside, actually, ONLY on the outside...

anyways... i leave with the assurity that he'll push the letter to the desired channels and promptly call me the next morning once it is done so that i can deliver the file to the HUB. I believe him n leave... i had to find out of my cap is still there...

Its not there... Breakpoint...

just another day??!!!

2008-06-26T08:23:00.000-07:00

picture this if you can... this is much well depicted by office office (the tv series), only when it does happen you hardly feel like laughing... but do remember one thing while you go over this long post, there is no sarcasm or exaggeration, its true facts and the rest depends on how well fit you are to live in virtual reality (basically your imagination, sorry if it was a real bad one...)

visa date... 1 jul... with a lot of contacts pulling strings here n there, only to speed up the process mind you, finally the property is transferred to our family, which would serve as collateral for my education loan. working days left for visa interview: 6. PNB, "the name you can bank upon"(thats their tag line), assures me the loan on time...

working day one:
Mr somebody: beta go to that person over ther.
Mr somebody 2: hanji...
"sir education loan, Mr Sindhwani must've talked to you about it".
"Oh, You are sindhwaniji's son... sit sit... kya loge... tea?"... i think i remember the guy from one time when we wanted to get a home loan, he shooed me away like a dog, only then i hadnt mentioned that i was sindhwanijis son...
"no uncle, thanks... i really don drink much tea", of course i do... my blood has more caffeine than oxygen i think... but work is more imp here and any distractions are not welcome...
"sure, could you wait a moment, i have this report i've to finish, they're coming for inspection today u know", guess i should've had that tea, i didn mean to disrespect him...
"sure"... my first big mistake, for the next 2 hours i watched him struggle hopelessly trying to figure out how (and what) to print out. other people of the staff joined in with their so called expertise, n sure enough there was a bundle of 4 sheets at the end of it... well done... not to mention that these guys eat up paper faster than all the termites in the world put together. all for no reason... cant the bugger coming to check the report see it on a comp...? anyways...
"uh, uncle?"
"han.. ek min beta..." n he was back to educating himself with the core banking software...
finally he managed to get the thing signed from whoever was coming... who didn even bother to ask what the reports were... n commented, "ye to raddi he ji... kuchbhi nikaal dete...!!"... well... finally he suggested that i leave the documents with him, he took my phone no, in case there are any documents missing n he needs to contact me... i couldn help imagining where it was headed "as you say uncle..." understandably reluctantly...

working day 2:
"all done uncle?"
"han han... jus a min"
30 min later... "show me the documents once..."
he started calling for things... PAN card copy, this certi that certi, n relentlessly pulled out every peace of bundle me n my dad had prepared, all organised neatly, all my dads docs in one bundle, mine in one and my mums' in one... all to no avail...
an hour n thirty minutes later... "chai peeoge beta?", i was not gonna let him have it this time... call dad... never mind roaming...
me on phone now "ji... ek min... ", "uncle papa wants to talk to you"... hand over the phone, i guess he told him something senti as i heard the man opposite me saying "are sir... ghar ki baat he... koi aur joota ho to wo bhi mar do mere sar pe... jaisa aap kahein, waise hi kar denge, sanction letter to me abhi de deta hu"... me??... very hopeful at this stage... i even started to give room to people standing behind me, for all the draft queries (n there was a considerable lot), other loan wallas also, waiting patiently for the crowd to clear up... when it did, he started typing the letter, lets call it letter no. 1. another hour later, i had the letter, signed by the manager n all... when i came to know this was not the sanction letter, i had to take this to someplace called a HUB...

20 min of driving which narayan kartikeyan would've have been proud of (yukkie complement i know...), n i'm ther... only to know he cant do it today... lotta work u see... but sindhwaniji ki application he... "you come n collect the sanction letter tomm beta... i'll see to it its ready"...
"but uncle i was hoping i could get it today..."
"are... bahut kaam he beta... "

and it began all over again... digest this, i'll have more tomm...

hello... Mr. BALDwin.

2008-06-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

This title is not to be confused with one of Enid Blytons', and if you do meet him, please try to explain for me that the similarity is hardly noticeable... plz...

70% males suffer from baldness or start to show signs before the age of 30 (source wikipedia... if you cant find it there, then somebody must've removed it). Another, "A number of primate species also experience hair loss following puberty, and some primate species clearly use an enlarged forehead, created both anatomically and through strategies such as frontal balding, to convey increased status and maturity"... (i'd mention the source but i was not sure if the lines following this were in my best interests)... Now, coming to the point i wanted to make...

I want to tell you guys about a serious condition that i've been suffering through... its called... "premature balding which is uncalled for" and i've tried to find all possible solutions (and played ginny pig for most of them) to force it to take a detour from the inevitable. Yes i am getting BALD.

This is probably the worstest (dont blame me... Bhargav introduced me to that innovation in english grammar) thing that can happen... wouldn't it break your heart to see a strand of hair stuck in your fingernails whenever you take them near the scalp?... there it'll be... curved like twisted mouth of the devil who just devoured an innocent bird and was not even sure why... or when you wake up one morning and find that a significant number of hair had a heart attack the same night and their corpses lie on your pillow. Not to mention that while i was trying to figure out the reason for this, someone decided to shoot your soulmate named confidence with a shotgun and he is trying hard ever since to rise but will have to do with memories of the GLORY days, much like the SENSEX... And all this without me doin anything to trigger it...

So dearest fans of mine... i took the path of voluntary baldness... and payed a barber to take off all that was left of it in hopes of finding out what was wrong with the soil in which the seeds of those erstwhile strands wouldn't hold... and just like the book of revelations that does not reveal anything, i found nothing wrong, just few white spots which are the largest producers of dandruff flakes and a few pimple like projections towards the sky. As i said, nothing new... The only consolations for now till all those oily concoctions, which my mom have in mind, yield results are to found in the first para of this post... Also i dont have to see them fall everyday on my broad and proud shoulders... farewell my dearest, we shall be together, if not in this life then the next...

In loving memory of my hair...

writers block...

2008-06-05T21:44:00.000-07:00

Finally i found a phrase for it. Its called "writers block". So i can tell all you two dearest hard core fans of mine that my absence from the bloggosphere is a natural phenomenon. it happens time to time. I can only hope u understand ;)...

Well folks... i'll tell you one thing... you wont regret my absence cuz i've brought with me some amazing theories and incidents to write about.

One is my recent trip to shiridi... Sai baba ki jai ho... cant imagine i was so apprehensive when my mom first told me we're leavin for shiridi.. i think i had my reasons, one and probably the most important was that i'll have to give an excuse to my gym instructor and ask for a leave for 4 days (for a 3 day trip...), yeah i had joined 2 days back and hated to break the routine (an angry face goes here, didn know how to make it)... another is the uncertainty over the train tickets, they were unconfirmed till then but reassurance from my dad that he'll somehow fit in a lalu yadav quota didn help much, and oh.. they were sleeper class, and i was definitely not in a mood to take a journey with temperatures reaching 50 degree c outside... man these guys are gonna regret it was all i was thinking...

so it began... trip to station was fine... and so was the journey, it rained so the thermometer shed off some silver... and though there were 4 seats confirmed for 5 ppl, it was horrible to adjust... all those unresearved walas were sittin and wouldn move their butts... and there were typical house wife mums trying to get hold of their children and catch up on all the household politics. This was a family with some 20 ppl travelling together!!! and their occasional screams that would tell you quite clearly that sitting on their seat for a while, while you were waiting for your 'legal' place on the 3 seater loaded with 5 ppl, was probably the biggest act of judicial disrespect and immorality that you've done and the corresponding punishment by listening to all of those 20 ppl screaming at you at the same time tryin to make you feel all the more sorry for the whole affair...

but once the first few hours went by, it was smooth. i found myself safe on a corner seat with special new year edition outlook featuring 'my India story' with me which i had promised myself to read to increase my pitiful knowledge of MY country on the first week of 2008... And time passed by, i learned about writers block in one of those articles and stopped feeling bad about letting down my fans here, i was sure they'd understand. And probably the biggest inspiration was the feeling "hey... i can write better than that!!.." and the result is this blog entry. i was pretty sure google has deleted my account but... well... god bless Larry n Sergi...

I know this is goin a bit longer than you thought but hey what did u expect... dont you tend to eat more food after a long fast... ok one more thing.. lemme at least tell you y shiridi was good... people... there are times in your life when you would think something is wrong and it turns out its not... and this was one of them times... there was a huge spiritual revelation and my confidence increased several folds... Over there i saw some of the most beautiful ladies i've seen for a long time... i hope they asked for good guys to come into their lives.. only if they were wise enough they'd know their wishes were granted and i was there... with them... but well... their (and my) bad luck wanted to play its part... and i came back without the 'committed' tag...

so folks thats all... i hope you enjoyed my comeback entry... do leave your comments... i'l spare both of my hardcore fans this obligation (me and myself)...

PS: its not really that long

PPS: Shiridi trip was a disaster if you didn get the sarcasm yet

PPPS: the ladies part is true.

old post...

2007-12-25T05:54:00.000-08:00

well i have a question to all the people who know me... who do you think i am... from what i know, i am a fun loving guy who can get down at times, but thats only at a very "normal" frequency,
its not surprising i should feel "not into the zone"...

this post i had started to write long back... never could finish because of the "mood" mentioned above... to sum it up it was a meet of old school friends where i really felt awkward... and the fact that i know it shouldn have been tht way, amplifies the stupid feeling all the more... to think of it there have been so many times when i felt like running away, just that there is almost always a better way to handle things, a better word i couldve been spoken instead of something that could crack a relation however remotely, a better line to start off a conversation with a girl i've been head over heels about for a long time, or just control my hand at the time, and my body, and my brain from shaking. A speech (no... not speech, they usually go really well because i usually have time to think before it.), a compering job that went haywire, a hindi debate (this one is already my favourite most embarrassing moment)... well... u got the idea...

but this was not embarrassment, it was just awkward... cant explain it really... uh... nevermind...

PS: I didn intend to do a chintan here... but u guys wont understand with all the guys n gals weird in their different ways (not all mind you), again... i shouldn be writing this...
PPS: get lost n come back when i post somethin else... i cant say it... not that i dont want to, but... uh... FFUUCKK...

browny sunday...

2007-06-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

aki: heres a thought, whatsay we go to mahindra chowk n have a browny sunday...

so it all began, given the 47 degree centigrade average temperature and of course the heavenly taste of dark chocolate cake covered by three huge scoops of vanilla with chocolate chips n a thick gluttony layer of hot chocolate whose beauty can only be rivalled by the himalayan peaks covered with snow, only the colour has to be turned inside out, mmmmm, oh... where was i... han... so it seemed a very "just thing" to do...

aki: chal na, kal se jogging... pakka... i'll wake u up... cmon bro... its only when you come here that i go there, only with you...

i knew he was lying... reasons... for one he weighs more than me... but i gave him the credit... not that i was very confident of keeping the commitment of jogging... maybe at that point i was... well watever...

so we went there, never mind 40 degrees at 8:30 in the evening n the resolution to cut calories n have "healthy food" while at home at least, n ordered it... at 60 bucks a piece, its an unhealthy and a hoodwinked bargain, but i don't weigh 85 kilos because i give a damn about it, if you know what i mean...

then a bugger came just as i was about to enter... asked me for some money, said he hadnt had any food n crap like that... before i could do anything, the shopkeeper shooed him away... "bloody bastards, never mind them... they're stupid shit pots... u wont even like shittin on them"... well i like shitting, for reasons mentioned before (read "this blog is dedicated to shit")... so i said "dont mention, u can do something about ur language though" n carried on...

after i had indulged in the sunday n gratified myself n when i was through with all the scraping of hot chocolate off the bottom of the plastic plate, i finally decided to part with it... yes i threw it in the dust bin... with all the trash in there, the milk shake glasses n other plastic plates, there it lied... one amongst many like it...

over... time to move on, n just as i turn back to get a tissue paper, i took this image above... the guy was the same bugger for sure... he took out the "empty" plastic plate, licked it, fought over it with his other counterparts n threw it on the grass and moved to the next shop... he couldnt be more than 8yrs old.

i think i felt nauseous, but thats about it... i really couldnt do anything, atleast i 'd like to believe that... jai jawan, jai hindustan...

ps: i tried to continue with the humor i wanted in this blog, but the only type pertinent enough was sullen, if i hurt anyones sentiments, please understand it was supposed to be sarcastic, a joke on the human mentallity and the world of boneheads, of which i am an outlawed member...

i'm back

2007-06-06T05:29:00.000-07:00

this is for all those people who thought that i'll spare you of my conspicuous thoughts, ruthless criticism, and of course my philosophy (i've started to call it nikhilism), people your days of dominion are soon to meet oblivion becuz I M BACK...
n this time its not rahul (yes no matter how much you love him, he's history), its me. why did i chose rahul in the first place, well, i really dont know, i thought it might be a good way to disguise the happenings that i record, but i guess that was a dumb idea all along. so now i'll give it to all my fans (yes yes all of you infinitesimally small lot), the way of nikhil.

oh yeah the punch line... ummm...
"you can hide only to a point. then you realise that your instinct is nonetheless being corruted by the outside world."
think about it...

this post is dedicated to SHIT

2006-10-03T12:24:00.001-07:00

“holy shit…”, Rahul’s first words on the Monday morning, he’s just gotten up, 8:15, first hour starts at 8:30, and there is no way in the world he could miss this class… thanks to the sheer number of Mondays that dot each semester. Cant say that was the only reason though… his teacher played a significant role as well… no matter how much caffeine is there in your body, his ability to drain it with so much as just a word biostatistics is nothing short of spectacular… that too without the slightest ornamentation (which one usually does while singing a lullaby). Net result… this hour (biostatistics) has topped the list of bunks (that would be 18)…to an extent that if Rahul attends all classes from now on then “probably” he’d be saving a lag…

Anyways he gets out of bed… which is the hardest part… but with a display of Brobdingnagian courage, that is achieved… go to get coffee, disappointment, coffee time over… bathing is not there in the circumference of activities, owing to the very short radius of time… what about shitting… the pivotal activity that would label the day as “not bad”…yes, a choice made instantaneously… but who was to prophesize that fate was against it… there was no water… “SHIT”…

“Hey dude, is there water anywhere…???”, he asks a friend just getting out of his room… he looked in a better condition, so Rahul, guessing the obvious doesn’t hesitate to enquire if there is a flimsy possibility of a “better day”…

“Yeah, central wing upstairs”… came the reply…

“Thanks buddy, you’re a savior”…

Time check… 8:20… shitting time… the time of most intellectual activities where one reviews, curses (oneself and others), thinks about things that have absolutely no relation to you, get frustrated sometimes… etc… and because of all this somehow one feels light headed… even if the rate of peristalsis is not as satisfactory as wanted…

So in this most intellectually active state, Rahul reflects upon the events that had taken place since morning… the ringing of cell phone at 6 am, time at which he promised himself to get up and go to gym… the pressing of the snooze button on the top right corner (its awe-inspiring how one can find that small button with great accuracy even at a time when nothing else in the whole wide world is visible either physically or mentally), then getting up again at six thirty… this time being unable to decide whether to go or not, and thoughts like ‘its too late perhaps, I’ll not be able to get over with all the exercises in time’ which are followed by computations and finally concluding the inevitable,

“its too late to go to gym… because its too early to get up…!!”...

but still aware of the deucedly pernicious condition of him missing the first hour he resets the alarm to 8:00 am, that would give enough time to do morning activities… if the ten minutes of late entry contingency time is included… at 8:00 am snooze button comes into play again… finally he gets up…8:15… “Holy shit”…

“Why, why does this always happen… why after all those resolutions of getting up early, jogging, going to gym probably, made up at bedtime, I wasn’t able to get up…why was I not able to keep a commitment I made to myself… and that too when I need it the most…

…what is the use of going through the day like a factory (only there’s no constructive production taking place)… going through the same routine with no enthusiasm, where one wishes for the day to get over as soon as it began… wouldn’t it be better if each day was like a new journey filled with ebullience and passion and joy, where everything is gratifying… even the double hours of Digital Signal Processing (well… sometimes at least), where each activity opens up the doors to new ideas, possibilities, where my brain works a thousand time faster than when fueled with just caffeine…”

(Why is all this being linked up with getting up early???...well... somehow he’s sure that getting up early could help solve most of his problems… even experience has a similar story to tell owing to the days when he used to get up early… no matter how numbered they were… or the circumstances under which it happened… the fact is that those days told him the experience is, well in one word… SEXY)

Come to think about it, I think its all about making the right choices at the right time… as is in this case as well… he made a wrong choice in the beginning and he suffered, whatever might be the logical conclusion of the calculations done at 6:30, the fact is that he was not able to keep a commitment he had decided to keep earlier, and at this point nothing else matters…

Let’s have another point of view… Rahul actually chose a response given by a mind that was at that moment covered with layers of iron oxide (more commonly known as ‘rust’), in comparison to a decision that was taken by a mind which was shining out of whole day’s filing... up to last night…

(then from some dank corner came a sound)

Ring ring… Ring ring…

(reminder…)

SHIT… its 8:30… but before signing off lets have a final conclusion….

“The movement of shit in ones bowels is directly proportional to the movement of shit in ones head”

second breath

2006-09-21T12:15:00.000-07:00

second breath is typically defined as something which u find when u really crave for it... though in the dictionary it has several words like doggedness, perseverance, persistence, tenaciousness etc., I like the sound of "second breath".

the term is usually associated with sport, that's where Rahul first heard it at least... it was one of those days when he was literally tricked out of bed to go to jog (don’t get the impression that it happens every time… just once in a while)... ok...when you know one of your best friends is on his way to keep a commitment to go to jog and you're still with your lazy ass in bed, what do u do? Usually it becomes too much to handle for a mind that’s just started to get used to the fact that its morning already and that’s when you in some freak moment decide to keep your side of the bargain...I know u might feel I’m exaggerating but it can be totally vindicated... especially when you are an eighty kilo, big ass bum, who has up to now blamed the same guy for not waking him up...

ok so moving on… they go to jog, and Rahul wont pretend that he’s used to it, as it is that’s hard to do, I guess it all shows when the huffing and puffing almost sounds like the rhythm of a toy train, and the heart beat is like drums as in some metallica song, only out of tune. Of course his friend can’t feel that way, as already they’re running too slow by his standards which can be described by his winning of badminton championship and records in swimming in running waters of the Ganga… and in a sudden caprice to converse, he decides to help him out… he said “keep running… you’re close to the second breath”…

now this was after they’d run some 200m and it did come, I mean Rahul felt like dying at that particular moment and suddenly it was like his muscles had found a new oil well… they ran till the college gate (that’d be another 500m) before he asked if he’d have any third or fourth breaths … he still wonder what was it that was so funny about it, because he smiled, and said “no my friend only one second breath”… and they decided to walk their way back to the hostel…

rahul learns to fight

2006-09-21T12:09:00.000-07:00

rahul became a part of the 'music cult' when he was 11 years old... the first songs he heard were of aqua, vengaboys etc. but as he grew, tastes changed, "its my life" by bon jovi caught his ear and he's been a fan ever since. then he understood the beauty that lied in the lyrics, the way those hardly decipherable words made amazing rhyme and meaning was much more than captivating and that's where he found another spring to derive inspiration from. since then music had played an important role in rahul's life. the fact that one can almost always justify the happenings in one's life and relate it to some song or the other is nothing short of baffling. hats off to lyricists worldwide.just read the lines below and maybe u'll understand what i mean more clearly...

"i've been knocked down so many times,

counted out, six seven eight nine

bring it off like some bad deal,

if you're breathing you know how it feels,...

chorus:

call it karma,

call it luck,

me i just dont give up

bounce bounce nothings gonna keep me down,

bounce bounce stand up shout it out...

i play hard, i play to win,

count me out count me in

i'll be bouncing back again...

this aint no game i play it hard

cut around all stitched and scarred

i'll take the hit but not the fall

i know no fear still standing tall…

chorus…"

now this tells you, there are times you'll get hit, but nothings wrong in that, everyone does, for if you come out of a battle without any scars, one would only assume that you never entered the battlefield. you gotto have scars, bitter memories, which will help you fight the next battle, and thats why you should not run from it "i know no fear" but go right in, "still standing tall".

he first heard this song when he was preparing for iit-jee. at times when he was angry with himself (various reasons can account for that), he'd tell himself that the goal lies at the end of the crusade and that he has to keep walking. he cant afford the luxury to be displeased over a failure. any ways iit didnt happen, and probably you'll now conclude that "i knew these things are not practical... they just look good in books", but lemme tell you they do work, what happened with rahul was not because the principle is wrong, but because he failed to apply it fully.

if one tries to fathom the depth of the lake with a stick and realise that the stick one is using is not long enough, then not many have the inspiration to go and find another becuz one would have to unclog the sweat glands which you havn't used ever since, and even if you do and go and find a bigger stick, chances are that it's still not enough... that's when one decides that the lake is actually an ocean and "i cannot measure it, others might have done it, but the've just been lucky". yes they were lucky because someone told them that patience and persistence are two prerequisites one must possess and practise continuously, not because someone gave them the stick of the right size first up.

now as he listened to this song just before he is to start preparing for his next exam, all these thoughts come back. he feels now that he is better prepared for his next battle.

brainy wave

2006-09-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

*continued from brainwave...

so rahul finds this particularly interesting, i.e., saying a punchline and then interpreting it in different ways.

one... the obvious, i.e., you can surely save your jeans by rolling it up. two, if one thinks in the broader sense then one might say it shows that rahul is flexible, i.e., he's not one of those people that would do just anything else but to look back unto themselves and say "this is where actual work is supposed to be done... on me" or it might show your confidence (in analogy to rolling up your sleeve, for the ones who find it out of place, i'll clarify that it was a suggestion given by my roommate).

but here is what rahul actually thought. being a thinker and having asked himself many a questions about life (and many times at that), he has somehow tuned himself to learn from whatever life brings on and here one can see that when someone is confronted with a problem, the solution is awfully close (though one cannot generalise this, well if tomorrow you come to know that you have lung cancer, you cannot do anything abt it, can ya, oh... you can stop smoking... anyways... you get the point)...

here's another angle to it, one has to do everything bottom up, actually it should be inside out but one can adapt him/herself to conclude the same...
and one more... when one sees in a distance an uneasy journey approaching its usually better to equip him/herself before you begin.
i think i've used more brain cells today than i usually do so i'm gonna stop there... however let me tell you there could be more entailments, so people keep scratching...

the brainwave

2006-08-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

Its monsoon season all around, though it's not raining where i m right now, this place gets showers when most of rest of india is sodden and drained and dried and preparing to embrace winter (its Tamil Nadu... so dont search for a link to any geography lesson)...Rahul was walkin on one such day through the campus, which was being cleansed with fresh rain pouring from heavens, but he could hardly stop and appreciate that.

Last night had been amazingly frustrating and tiring, as is every exam's eve. Yeah its exams... again. Biochemistry this time so he's just walking with a sheet of xerox in one hand and covering his head with harpers (the book) in the other. He's not lookin up front, "just one more time", "that goddam squalene sythesis", "should i go to the canteen n have some more coffee", are some of the thoughts going through his mind as he heads toward the examination hall. He hardly gives a damn to the muddy water, or the earth below him which was undergoing beautification or renovation or whatever u might wanna call it, and what its doin to his darn blue LEE. Anyways as hectic as it might be, only one thing can console him right now, "its soon gonna be over" (the exam i.e.).

Forgive me for not giving the details of the last minute hysteria, i can only hope u understand how painful it is, but anyways its over finally. The next one is in two days. For now he wants to enjoy the brief moment of mental stability.As he walks back the path to the hostel that he treaded a few hours ago, he notices his jeans, yeah the darn blue LEE. Its his favourite jeans and it bruises his heart tissue to see it begrimed. So he pulls it up to the knee and continues. Now that that terror is out of his head, he finds it relatively easy to walk through the slippery sludge of mud that floods the hostel entrance. And here comes the brainwave:

"u can walk straight ahead with relative ease when u have ur jeans rolled up"

as he started to decompress the thoughts and virtues and other significations of this sentence, he found it wasn't really just a statement, for one moment he doubted he had actually said it. because it means so many other things, depending on how one interprets it...